Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Introduction: The New Dispensation

Each year, and each month within it, sees the impact of global movements affect every country, and every higher education system, in measurable ways. The background contains several key elements which need always to be taken into consideration: the shifts in global power and wealth, with China’s rise in economic strength alongside the growing importance of India, Brazil and South Asian countries; the effects of the digital revolution which enables almost instant communication within and across national boundaries worldwide; and the expansion of world population, combined with unstable weather patterns, which can bring about movements of people across country boundaries. The ease of international flight, and its cheapness, has encouraged worldwide travel; people, particularly in Western nations, have become accustomed to travelling from place to place; academics, no less, have been able to exchange and explore ideas at international conferences. Students are travelling in greater and greater numbers to study in universities outside their homeland: indeed, many countries, such as Brazil and China, view foreign study as an excellent plus point on an aspiring academic’s curriculum vitae.

Phil Altbach’s work over the last 20 years has charted this movement towards globalisation. His concerns are with international developments, and he explores, in a number of his volumes, the ways in which globalisation has affected higher education worldwide (Altbach 1997, 2006; Altbach and Peterson 1999). As the leader of the Fulbright New Century Scholars Program in 2005/2006, he led a group of scholars who examined particular aspects of global higher education and coedited in 2007 the book which came out of their work, Higher Education in the New Century: Global Challenges and Innovative Ideas (Altbach and Peterson 2007); Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution (2009) followed in which he brought together a series of essays which examine particular aspects, including globalisation and internationalisation, access and equity, the centrality and crisis of the academic profession and the financing of higher education. This chapter builds on Phil Altbach’s thinking and examines a few particular developments in global higher education which are becoming more pronounced with the passage of time.

A Revolution in the Delivery of Learning

One can argue that changes in the delivery of learning during the next decade will transform the landscape of higher education. Global solar-powered receipt of raw learning will be made available by satellite delivery. All that will be needed is a satellite receiver and a charging point for mobiles, linked to a local antenna to distribute the signal. A student would only need a mobile wallet to access the information provided. He/she will still need to be attached to a university and will need incentives to study, but remote learning is developing at a fast pace and it is cheap. Areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, which have so far had difficulty in accessing the technological revolution, will be opened up. Aston University in the UK has found that there was no difference in the grades of students who studied by remote video learning and those who studied internally at the university (personal communication). This has been verified in the work of Shachar and Neumann (2003) who found that, given positive support, distance learning students outshone traditional academic performances. The perceived trend of demand for higher education is certain to continue, and new ways of delivering and accessing study courses, worldwide, will develop.

Government Response to Comparative Data

More people, more competition for resources and more striving by governments to improve the social and economic prospects of their nations have led to their searching for effective policies to maximise the skills of their population by developing efficient education systems. Over the past decade, many countries have reformed their higher education systems. One of the catalysts for this has been the public availability of internationally comparable data, which can add an extra dimension to that found by national analysis and evaluation. Phil Altbach’s work has contributed considerably to the collection of data on specific aspects of higher education. He published in 2000, with David Engberg, Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Centers and Programs. A revised edition came out in 2006. He has also coedited African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook (2003).

The work of the Organisation for European Co-operation and Development (OECD) is particularly important in this regard. Its Directorate for Education publishes annually the Education at a Glance which enables education policy makers to view their country’s performance against those of other education systems. This information, together with country policy reviews, is designed to support the efforts governments are making towards policy reform. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), carried out every 4 years, is one such example. The role of the OECD over the last 50 years has been crucial in alerting countries to the best-performing education systems internationally and providing indicators of educational performance that both evaluate and help to shape public policy. The improvements enjoyed by those in OECD countries since the 1950s have been marked; in 1961, few entered higher education and the majority did not complete secondary education. Now, one in three young adults holds a degree and, in some countries, half do so. On average across OECD countries, the percentage of those with at least an upper secondary education has risen from 45 to 81 %, and those with a tertiary qualification from 13 to 37 %.

Differences between countries are of interest: the USA had one of the highest levels of tertiary education (about 28 %) 50 years ago, rising to about 40 % now, whereas Japan began from a lower base of around 13 % and is now at 58 %, and Korea from an even lower base (c.9 %) but now has c.62 % of the age group between 25 and 34 years, holding higher education qualifications.

Germany provides a good example of the effect of the provision of international comparative data. The PISA 2000 results showed that Germany had large socio-economic differences in outcome in its schools. The government responded by bringing in a wide range of equity-related reforms which included giving more education-related orientation to early childhood education, establishing national standards and enhancing support for disadvantaged students. As a result, the German education system is now more efficient and effective.

The diversity of higher education systems worldwide is thus a product of the particular culture of each country, with groups of countries, such as those in Scandinavia, exhibiting some similarities in their systems. However, the availability of information on the effectiveness of other systems of higher education has arguably had the effect in each country of raising awareness of their particular system of higher education and has led in many countries to that system being modified to bring about positive reforms. The range of systems remains highly diverse, with some countries having binary systems, some having unitary systems, some having a marked percentage of private provision, and some having very few private institutions at all. Thus, the effect of globalisation is to enable each country to become self-aware and to modify its higher education system in tune with the culture of the country. Systems remain diverse but are responsive to the pressures of globalisation.

Convergence: The Impact of Bologna

The Bologna Declaration, signed by the Ministers of Higher Education from 29 European countries in June 1999, has had influence far beyond the boundaries of Europe. The overall aim, expressed in the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, was to make Europe ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’. By 2010, 47 countries had signed up, including Russia. The aim of the original Declaration was to establish a harmonised joint Higher Education Area of Europe by 2010, which has been achieved. The means to attain its aim has been the establishment of a three-tier degree structure: Bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degrees, and Doctoral degrees. Alongside this, a European Credit Transfer System, a European-wide quality assurance system, and the Europeanization of academic courses have been developed. As Altbach points out: ‘The Bologna Process is guiding Europe toward shared benchmarks and standards that will make it possible to compare qualifications awarded in all participating countries’ (Altbach et al. 2009). The view of those masterminding the Bologna Process was that the diversity of higher education institutions in European countries should be protected at the same time as introducing a measure of convergence to all European higher education systems.

A report by the EUA ‘Trends V: Universities shaping the European Higher Education Area’ (2007) analyses the nature and extent of the implementation of the Bologna Process and assesses their impact on institutional development processes. The research reported in Trends V confirms that higher education institutions are implementing the Bologna Process. Particularly noticeable is the espousal of the idea of more student-centred and problem-based learning. The notion of the European Higher Education Area has taken hold, and there is a general shift in attitude to recognising its importance.

Eighty-two per cent of institutions now have the three cycles of Bachelor’s/Master’s/Doctoral degrees in place, as against 53 % in 2003. The questions at issue now within countries are the articulation between the cycles, admission to the first cycle, the different types of bachelors and masters and any particular problems in some countries of the old and new structures running together.

One issue of growing importance is the movement towards the student-centred concept of higher education and integrating a learning outcome-based approach into the delivery of programmes. Another is the concern that employability should be a major feature in the reform of all curricula. An emphasis on the importance of strengthening the contribution to learning made by employers and other external stakeholders is widely shared.

Almost 75 % of institutions reported that they use European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) as a transfer system and over 66 % as an accumulation system. The meeting in 2008 adopted the Qualifications Framework for the European Higher Education Area. Ireland has instituted one for its national system: others are developing their own frameworks.

Another area that was expanded markedly over the last 4 years has been the provision of student services. As the student body has grown more diverse, guidance and counselling services have become more necessary, demanding professional staff and adequate resourcing.

Much effort has been put into developing both internal quality processes in institutions and external quality assurance systems: these are now common to most European countries. The European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) (2005) were adopted by Ministers at the Bergen meeting; a major research project (www.ibar.com) is currently examining the effectiveness and scope of such quality processes in embedding a quality culture in institutions whereby innovation and creativity can be enhanced.

A remarkable aspect of the trend of convergence instituted by Bologna has been its effect on, first, the countries bordering Europe and, second, internationally. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Lithuania have all been moved to reform their higher education systems and have drawn inspiration from the Bologna Process (Nodia 2011). In Georgia, the Bologna Process was declared as the main guiding principle of higher education reform for the country. A number of radical reforms have been instituted which have improved the efficiency of the higher education system considerably. A National Accreditation Agency has been created; a new system of financing based on the principle of per-capita funding of students has been introduced; national entrance examinations have been instituted; the three cycle system of degrees has been brought in, along with ECTS; and a new system of funding research based on open competition for funds has been set up. While those in Georgia consider that not all is yet achieved, particularly in the smooth running of the quality assurance system, the major reforms already gained owe much to the global exchange of information and the wish to attain international, European standards: to converge, while remaining diverse. Likewise the papers by Ibadov and Purvaneckiene (2011) bear witness to the impact of Bologna on Azerbaijan and Lithuania.

The impact of Bologna has continued and is continuing to have policy repercussions worldwide. Latin America, North Africa and Australia have drawn on aspects of Bologna to reform their own systems, and the USA has shown particular interest in Bologna’s work on learning outcomes in the context of academic disciplines. The Institute for Higher Education Policy published The Bologna Process for US Eyes: Re-learning Higher Education in the Age of Convergence C. Adelman in 2009, a book which has been influential in policy circles (Institute for Higher Education Policy 2009). A particular process, named ‘Tuning’, has been developed under the umbrella of Bologna, which offers a discipline-based means of establishing common reference points for writing student learning outcome statements in consultation with faculty, students and employers. ‘Tuning USA’ has been conceived on this basis and is being applied in the states of Indiana, Minnesota and Utah to determine the extent of its potential.

Democracy, Access, Equality and Mobility

The growth in world population, teamed with the ease of communication, access to the Internet, video and television, means that, through satellite communication, almost every country can receive images and information about what is happening elsewhere in the world. The life styles of the West can be seen in the Far East and the tip of Latin America. Altbach’s work has been much concerned with the Far East and India. Indeed, an interest in Asian universities is one of the long-standing themes of his work (Altbach and Selvaratnam 1989; Altbach 1998, 2007; Altbach and Umakoshi 2004). It is no surprise that the demand for access to higher education is unabated; a degree is an aspiration for many. It is also no surprise that students are not only growing in numbers but are also prepared to travel to other countries to get the education they seek. In 1990, there were 66.9 million student enrolments worldwide; by 2009, there were 165 million (OECD 2011). In 2009, there were 3.7 million mobile students, a number which is expected to rise to 6.7 million by 2020, many of whom will come from emerging countries (Calderon 2010). The estimated trade value of foreign students for the three big receiving countries Australia, USA and UK is $49 billion, 50 % of whom come from Asia. The expected growth trends for 2020 are the following: Gulf States, moderate growth; East Asia, stable to moderate growth depending on the country; Southern and Central Asia, medium growth; and Latin America, moderate to medium growth.

The trend is clearly towards growth in terms of mobile students: the number of tertiary students enrolled outside their country of citizenship rose by 6.4 % between 2008 and 2009 while global tertiary enrolment grew by 3.3 % in the same period. Since 2000, the number of foreign tertiary students enrolled worldwide increased by 77 %, with an average annual growth rate of 6.6 %, and in OECD countries by 79 %, a rate of 6.7 %. European countries remain the most popular, with a share of 38 % followed by North America (23 %). Regional mobility is becoming of growing importance, with student flows in European countries and in Eastern Asia and Oceania tending to reflect geopolitical evolution in those areas. In absolute terms, however, the largest numbers of international students are from China, India and Korea.

The effect on institutions of growing numbers of international students is marked. In the UK, some institutions have over 20 % international students and 15 % is common. This necessitates arrangements for such diverse students to be integrated successfully into the student body.

One aspect related to mobility is the setting up of branch campuses within countries wishing to expand the availability of high-quality higher education. Qatar is a good example; the government established the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development which has encouraged branch campuses in Qatar of Cornell, Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon universities. This transnational education can also include the franchising of courses, joint programmes, distance learning and virtual universities. One problem for the receiving countries has been that of monitoring the quality of the foreign providers offering courses within their countries. This is now being addressed. The Indian University Grants Committee, for instance, has approved new regulations that reserve entry to foreign university partnerships solely to those who rank within the top 500 global universities as named by the Times Higher Education supplement or the Shanghai Jiatong University rankings. Professor Prakash, the UGC Chairman, speaking at a UNESCO conference in 2004 is quoted as saying, ‘we would like only quality academic institutes to establish programmes here’.

The concern for equality is worldwide, and figures produced by the OECD present a detailed picture of gender differences in their affiliated countries in both entries to higher education, achievement and employment. Countries such as the UK have established bodies such as the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) to advance equality and diversity in higher education. It is not a regulator but is funded to do sector-wide research in line with the Equality Act of 2010 (Equality Challenge Unit 2011). The Unit found that students from ethnic backgrounds increased from 14.9 % in 2003/2004 to 18.1 % in 2009/2010, with the percentage of black students increasing at the fastest rate, from 4.4 to 5.9 %. However, they exhibited lower degree attainment and continuation rates than their white peers. The majority of ethnic Chinese students were at the old universities; ethnic black students favoured modern universities. In terms of gender, there have consistently been more female students than male this century, with males more likely to attain a lower 2nd or 3rd class honours degree and more likely to withdraw from their courses. However, the majority of postgraduate students studying Science, Engineering and Technology subjects are male (52.4 %). Employment prospects are still unequal: the figures for 2009/2010 indicate that 54.7 % of white graduates find employment after 6 months, whereas 44.4 % black and minority ethnic graduates do so. The levels of ethnic minority participation in higher education, and of female participation, remain a key policy issue for all countries.

Access, too, a topic that Altbach addressed in Trends in Global Higher Education (2009), is a recurrent issue in all countries. Indeed the intersection of equality and diversity with widening participation is increasingly important in view of the changes in the funding of higher education and the emphasis on ‘the student experience’. The problem for all countries is how to deliver the high number of graduates required for the global knowledge economy. It is particularly marked in OECD countries where demographic forecasts indicate that the projected number of 20–24-year-olds is already beginning to drop and is expected to drop further and only starting to make some slow recovery around 2025. Added to this is a continuous falling away of the demand by employers for those who undertake manual and routine tasks. These jobs will not disappear entirely, but the demand for those able to undertake abstract tasks (the graduates) will continue to expand steadily. It becomes essential to find and educate the untapped stocks of talent within each country.

Jamie Merisotis, President of the Lumina Foundation in the USA, speaking in July 2012 at Aspen, Colorado, pointed out that a college degree is a prerequisite for the modern economy. The USA has 16 million students in postsecondary education, but it needs 23 million more. Nations today compete on a basis of talent, human capital and innovation. In the USA, the differential in income between those with postsecondary education and the rest continues to grow. In terms of unemployment, only 8.9 % are graduates, while 23 % unemployed have only a high school leaving certificate and over 40 % are those without any credentials. He argues that ‘equity matters’ and low economic groups must be enabled to access postsecondary education; two thirds of all new jobs now require some sort of postsecondary credential. It is not an easy problem to solve. Student loan debt stands at one trillion dollars, more than that of credit card debt, and Federal funding, in these straitened times, cannot make up the money needed. Families can no longer afford to pay for higher education. A new system of delivering higher education is essential or there will be, in Merisotis’ words, ‘an economic train wreck for our country’.

An ongoing EU-funded research programme, ‘Identifying barriers in promoting European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance at institutional level’ (www.ibar.com), has recently issued a report on quality and access. The work presents data from seven EU countries: the Czech Republic, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and the UK. These show that there has been a substantial growth in student numbers across all the countries in recent years. Some countries, including Latvia and Portugal, have high participation rates though demographic changes are affecting their overall numbers in higher education. Participation goals for all these countries are around 50 % and that figure has already been exceeded for some. They would all be designated as having ‘massified’ systems, in Burton Clark’s terminology, or even ‘universal’ higher education systems (Clark 1983).

In all countries, there was strong national steering by governments on the rules for admission of students to higher education. The main basis for entry is secondary school attainment, with additional entrance examinations for certain faculties. Some systems have a focus on improving admission rates for under-represented groups and for those with disabilities and offering alternative access routes. Institutions have developed targeted policies and initiatives to support student recruitment, access and widening participation. Those countries in the group which underwent reform in the last 20 years have sought to bring in standardised admissions procedures, with, in some cases, legal provisions being made for under-represented groups, such as those in Slovakia for Hungarian and Roma populations.

The desire to build a highly skilled labour force has driven growth, with a particular focus on those from lower socio-economic groups, from ethnic minorities and those with disabilities. Thus institutions are expected to play an active part in raising the awareness and aspirations of previously under-represented groups. Outreach to the whole community includes providing information to potential students and their parents about the nature of university life and study, how to fund that study and how to access grants and bursaries. Open days, school visits, summer schools and the use of media and social networks to disseminate information are commonly used. In some countries, such as the UK, targeted activities include regular visits to primary and secondary schools in deprived areas, school mentoring schemes for possible candidates from lower socio-economic groups, along with on-campus activities for them, and summer schools offering alternative admission routes for those who do not hold traditional qualifications.

Finance

The financing of higher education, particularly in these times of recession, has proved to be a worldwide problem. In recent years, there has been a switch to cost sharing, with the student and their family being expected to bear a greater and greater share of the cost. In some European systems, national schemes provide grants to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but there has been an increasing erosion of direct grants in favour of student loans. In other systems the institutions themselves are responsible for decisions on the level of financial support for those who are eligible. Measures can include subsidised accommodation, need-based scholarships, merit-based scholarships and short-term hardship payments. However, as has been seen in the USA, the inefficiency of loans can threaten the viability of the higher education system. Australia and the UK both have student loan schemes whereby the government provides the loan, which is paid back only after graduation. This system can lead to the control of the numbers allowed to access university, but it has the benefit of enabling all who receive a place, whatever their socio-economic status, to attend college.

Public Accountability

One trend linked to the movement for democracy and the desire to access higher education is the public demand for information. This has led to the development of performance-based tools which provide transparent monitoring and accountability of the sector. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of obligations and mechanisms which, while not always being welcomed by higher education institutions, do meet the public demand for information and transparency. These can include legal requirements such as financial audits, quality assurance procedures, benchmarking exercises to compare courses across institutions, professional qualification recognition and information on governing bodies. University rankings developed by the media are a growing force in terms of public accountability.

A report on funding and governance reforms in Canada (Snowden 2005) states: ‘Initially seen as intrusive and a recipe for government micro-management with a single goal of containing expenditures, the value of good accountability frameworks is now generally recognized as an important ingredient in the overall management and operation of post-secondary institutions’. Whereas accountability used to refer to financial matters, it has now become much more comprehensive, involving strategic future plans for institutions’ quality assurance and a range of performance measures covering the operation and outcomes of institutions. It is not uncommon for these performance measures to be developed jointly by government and institutions.

Linked to society’s demand for accountability is the movement towards encompassing a wider range of stakeholders in the work of institutions. University boards frequently have a majority of members external to the university; countries bringing together greater external representation to their boards include Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia (Lao and Saint 2008). The range of institutional stakeholders may be drawn from the community, government, employers, alumni, faculty, students and parents. The emphasis is on the provision of increased information about the quality of the courses, student satisfaction and employment outcomes. In Europe, the Bologna Process is developing a qualifications framework which will provide common performance criteria in the form of learning outcomes and competencies for every degree. In the USA, the Lumina Foundation has developed a ‘Degree Qualification Profile’, a tool which is being used in a pilot of a hundred institutions to assess the competencies developed on each particular course. Employers require people who have analytical skills, critical thinking skills, cultural awareness and communication skills. Provision of information about these skills on an individual basis would be much welcomed.

League tables have both positive and negative aspects. They provide information to the public on the effectiveness of the individual universities, measuring a range of aspects: the information of the leading producers of league tables is presented on a global basis. It underlines the global nature of higher education and at the same time fuels it. The tables have been much maligned, but the demand for knowledge and transparency of information is here to stay. Indeed, their power appears to be growing, in that they are now being used by governments such as that of India as a means of selecting which foreign universities might have access to their country.

Stratification

Stratification of Institutions

Many of the trends described in this chapter point towards positive aspects of global diversity, linked to greater opportunities for access, international mobility, more emphasis on the student experience and greater university autonomy with outward-facing governing bodies. The policy push in many countries for equality of opportunity and egalitarianism, and the establishment of porous boundaries of higher education, has had the effect of increasing the diversity and differentiation of higher education systems. However, there is a noticeable counterbalancing trend which is pulling towards stratification. Ulrich Teichler contended that diversity could be characterised in two ways: vertical and horizontal. Vertical diversity is diversity of status and hierarchy. There are tensions between the need for diversity and the trend towards status differentiation. Higher education has a ‘strong elite reproduction function’ (Brennan 2012). Although most higher education systems are now massified, particularly within the OECD, the pressures to maintain and expand an elite core inside the massified system are strong. This is supported by the publication of league tables and the ongoing debate on world-class universities.

The financial crisis has exacerbated this trend: as the pool of money constricts, the competition to attract the best students in a market-led system has the effect of emphasising the elite aspects of institutions. In the UK, the Russell Group of Universities, which prides itself on research-led curricula and research publications, has recently expanded its numbers by inviting the leading universities of the group beneath them in status to join them. Thus, the Russell Group gains in influence, and more stratification develops. Likewise, the individuals who are leaders of research groups who have won large amounts of research funding, but who work in the less prestigious universities, may well be invited to join the faculty of a local Russell University: ‘scouting for talent’. The effect, again, is to stratify the system, concentrating the talent and resources in the elite institutions.

Within Europe, there are marked trends towards the concentration of elite students at elite institutions and towards a greater concentration of research at elite institutions. Although European universities receive extra funding for research from the EU, the distribution of that is concentrated on elite institutions. Pedro Teixeira, speaking in London at the European Institute in March 2012, pointed out that in the UK, 20 % of institutions receive 80 % of the research funding. This impacts on the nonelite institutions and exacerbates the trend towards stratification. The most recent decisions in England to allow universities to take as many students as they wish who have AAB or higher in their qualifying examinations from October 2012 could further unbalance the system at a time when the fees of £9k a year are being introduced. Applications are down some 12 %, a number which could seriously destabilise some universities, particularly those which are relatively newly established ones, such as Gloucester.

Stratification of Opportunity

As long ago as 1999, the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement in the USA published a piece entitled Reinforcing Stratification in American Higher Education: Some Disturbing Trends (McPherson and Schapiro 1999). The authors found that the stratification in the USA was related to the availability of finance. Family income had a powerful effect on college enrolment, even among students with similar ability. The study examines the distribution of freshman enrolment by income background across institutional types. Stratification by income is clear: 29 % of students at private 4 year colleges in 1998 were from the richest families (over $200k a year) and 23.4 % at the private universities; 24.6 % of those at public universities were among the wealthiest and 14 % at public 4 year colleges. In contrast, those coming from families with incomes of less than $20k a year represented 2.9 % of students at private universities, 13.5 % at 4 year privates, 12.3 % at public universities and 21.8 % at public 4 year colleges. The bulk of those with low incomes accessed the 2-year public colleges (46.7 %). The report noted the ensuing long-term effects on US society of such stratification in terms of access to higher education for the economically disadvantaged. The authors, interestingly, argued for an income contingent loan scheme of the type which has been introduced to both Australia and the UK.

Conclusion

The pattern of emerging trends can be discerned worldwide, and particularly in the developed countries. The impact of the global financial crisis has affected all countries, though less so in the Far East and Australia. The major trends are not only towards diversification, to convergence, to widening participation, to equality and to mobility, but also to stratification. Indeed, stratification is present in virtually every country, to different degrees and in tune with the particular culture of that country. It impinges on all the other trends. The public demand for information and for accountability is inextricably tied to the effects of globalisation in a highly interconnected world. The trends were present before the financial crisis; now they are exacerbated. Some are positive and encourage the making of a fairer, more equitable society; others are likely to create discord, bring about less social mobility and engender less effective development of the highly skilled labour force every country needs. The long hard recession will not be easy for the world’s higher education systems.

Phil Altbach’s corpus of publications, from the 1980s onwards, has dealt with the whole range of issues and trends in international higher education. Indeed, he has often been among the earliest commentators to discern a particular trend. In 1999, he edited, with Patti Peterson, a book which explored the ways in which individual nations were responding to the challenges posed by the globalisation of higher education and postulated their effects in the twenty-first century (Altbach et al. 1999). The Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, has established itself as the foremost international centre in the world for studies on international higher education. As Director of the Center, Phil Altbach has published extensively and enabled scholars worldwide to be kept informed of the global trends in their area. Phil’s energy and ability to communicate are qualities much to be admired. The influence of his publications on the thinking of present and future scholars is, one hopes, likely to be long lasting.