The focus on the individual benefits of university is, unsurprisingly, not playing well with those who do not go. Sector advocates need to work harder, in an ideologically hostile climate, to illustrate the benefits skilled workers confer on the whole of society, say Stephen Handel and Eileen Strempel

A handful of high-profile developments purpose-built for global outposts have sprung up across Asia in the past two decades, promising vibrant, collaborative environments, sometimes at little cost. But as Stanford becomes the latest university to pull out, Rosalind Skillen asks how far the reality matches the rhetoric