Running head: GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION 1

Analysis of the Impact of Globalization

upon the Current Internationalization of Higher
Education
John C. Tacapan
California State University, Long Beach
Spring 2011

Globalization seems to be the wave of the
future and it ushers in the emergence of the so-
called borderless society. Steger (2009)
described globalization as a social condition
characterized by tight global economic, political,
cultural, and environmental interconnections
and flows that make most of the currently
existing borders and boundaries irrelevant (p.
8). Among the many aspects of independent
nation-states, their educational and economic
dimensions, experiences the most significant
impact of globalization. According to Spring
(2008), most of the worlds governments discuss
similar educational agendas that include
investing in education to develop human capital
or better workers and to promote economic
growth (p. 332). In fact, the three regional
organizations such as the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC), the European Union (EU),
and the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which are the key subjects of
globalization, play a significant role in
education (Dale & Robertson, 2002).
Educational discourses around the world
center on the interrelationship between
education and upward economic and social
mobility. Spring (2008) argued that these
discourses refer to human capital, lifelong
learning for improving job skills, and economic
development. However, as globalization opens
the opportunities for many people to acquire
globally-relevant and economically-feasible
education, it also jeopardizes the cultural,
political, and economic dimensions of
independent nation-states especially those which
are recipients of international aid from
multinational financial agencies such as the
World Bank (WB), the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). As Rizvi
and Lingard (2010) mentioned, the neoliberal
view of education is widely promoted by most
intergovernmental and many non-governmental
organizations such as the WB and OECD (p. 22).
Besides, the WB and OECD become major
players determined to influence national
educational policies and their evaluation (Rizvi &
Lingard, 2010). This influence on national
educational policies is implemented through
their structural adjustment programs (SAPs) in
which these institutions demand from their
creditor nations the implementation of SAPs in
return for supplying much-needed loans to
developing countries. Additionally, these
international economic institutions enjoy the
privileged position of making and reinforcing the
rules of a global economy that is sustained by
significant power differentials between developed
and developing countries (Steger, 2009). For
example, in their quest to produce globally-
competitive graduates, higher education
institutions (HEIs) in developing countries offer
curricular programs that are needed to produce
work force to fill the needs of developed countries
but may not necessarily reflect the immediate
local needs of the nation-state. This situation
leads to a mismatch between what the nation-
state needs and what the HEIs produce. The
oversubscription of college students in some
globally popular curricular programs also results
in underemployment, or worse, unemployment to
those who could not be absorbed by the global
market. This oversupply of workforce also results
in educational inflation where college graduates
and people occupying jobs for which they are
overtrained are underpaid or receive reduced
wages (Spring, 2008). Brown and Lauder (2006,
as cited in Spring, 2008) noted that globally, the
number of college graduates is larger than labor
market demand. In developing countries, this
oversupply of higher education graduates results
in brain drain and brain circulation, whereas, in
developed countries this results to educational
inflation. The real and imagined demand of some
forms of knowledge needed to fill the global
market also results to the proliferation of HEIs
whose programs may not be regulated and
controlled by recognized agencies; thus, some of
these HEIs function as diploma mills.
Another drawback of SAPs is the
privatization of state enterprises, which,
creditors believe, would lead to efficient
management and improved performance.
However, SAPs rarely produce the desired result
of developing debtor societies, because mandate
cuts in public spending translate into fewer
social programs, reduced educational
opportunities, more environmental pollution, and
greater poverty for vast majority of people
GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION 2

(Steger, 2009, p. 55). Hence, HEIs are gradually
weaned from public funding and expected to
become financially independent in the name of
autonomy, entrepreneurship, and fiscal
management, and they often replicate the
attributes of neoliberal and capitalistic policies of
their donors that literally commodify education
services and push universities to adopt more
private industry mechanisms, such as financial
controls and accounting, or a profit-center
philosophy within the institution (Sporn, 2003).
Additionally, in responding to and giving
expression to contemporary geopolitical shifts
and economic challenges, HEIs around the world
are increasingly entangled in interesting local,
national, and global relations. Transnational
students are using the internationalization of
higher education to extend and deepen their
capacity for thinking and acting globally,
nationally, and locally in order to enhance the
viability of their life trajectories (Singh, 2005, p.
9, in Ninnes & Hellsten, 2005). This move to the
internationalization of higher-education policy
and practice was initially driven by increased
student mobility, and the desire of universities to
attract students from overseas (Phillips &
Schweisfurth, 2008). Oftentimes, students from
developing societies desire to get a world-class
education in HEIs in North America, Australia,
and EU nations in order to become globally-
competitive. Although this internationalization of
HE opens more opportunities for students
around the world, it is also obvious that those
who come from families with rich social and
cultural capital have more access to educational
opportunities than those who lack the capital. As
a result, the internationalization of HE widens
the economic gap and perpetuates social
stratification between those who have and those
who have not.
The relationship between education and
economic development is inherently embedded in
the globalization discourse. UNESCO
emphasized the idea that Education is not an
end itselfbut is a means for human beings to
cope with change to act as responsible citizens
and for society to develop wealth, democracy, and
equity (UNESCOs 2001 International
Conference on Education, p. 11). Thus, the
global movement toward Education for All (EFA)
and UNs Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) exemplify this ideology of educational
equity at least in the basic education level
(Schweisfurth & Phillips, 2008). However, in
institutions of higher learning, education itself
is being subjected to, and engages in crass
marketization, individualistic consumerism, and
technological commodification (Singh, 2005, p.
11).
Globalization and the knowledge economy
have had great impacts upon the current
internationalization of higher education. Under
the commercialization and commodification of
higher education legitimated by the General
Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) HEIs
focus highly on generating extra revenue from
exporting education and attracting international
students to their institutions (Jiang, 2008).
Ninnes and Hellsten (2005) reported that
changes to funding regimes for higher education
have forced many institutions to engage globally
through off-shore programs and increased
recruitment of international students; yet
education is an increasingly contested domain as
the processes of global destructuring and
restructuring continue to empower and
disempower a range of education stakeholders.
These issues continue to leave us with the
impression that globalization and the
internationalization of higher education create
more social injustice and educational inequity.

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