The West Need Not Panic

Schools in Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China are now trying to establish themselves in analogous ways. Both Fudan and Peking universities, for example, have persuaded top scientists from Yale to split their time between labs in China and the West, in the hope that the younger faculty who work with them will develop into world-class scientists themselves.

Yet the West needn't panic; such arrangements show that the rise of the rest is an opportunity, not a threat. Globalization is a positive-sum game in education, as it is in economics. While Asian universities and their Western collaborators may profit from new arrangements, so does everyone else, since knowledge is a public good that other scientists and engineers can use.

The same argument can be made about strengthening education in places like Africa and Latin America. In an increasingly interdependent world, the capacity for cross-cultural understanding is becoming ever more important. Achieving it is best attained by providing students with overseas experiences, often at foreign universities, as part of their courses of study. As educational programs elsewhere improve, so will the international experiences of U.S. and European students.

There are other, less private gains. Better education around the world also translates into better-informed citizens and more-productive work forces. Everyone profits from the open exchange of information and goods. And solving the most important problems confronting us today—poverty, infectious disease, nuclear proliferation and global warming—will require international cooperation. Having better-educated global citizens can only help.

So how should Western universities respond to the rise of the rest? Already we've begun to experiment with franchise operations, setting up programs in the Middle East, China and elsewhere. Yet such programs, while valuable for the host regions, may risk damaging the reputation of the parent institution if top faculty can't be recruited for them. Greater virtual participation by professors at the parent campus may mitigate this risk.

More broadly, we should remember that increased competition is a good thing. The list of the world's top 20 universities is likely to change in the years ahead; Singapore's National University, to name one, is already within striking distance, and China's Peking and Tsinghua universities will get there soon. America's great universities should welcome the newcomers and recognize that the whole world will benefit from their success.

Levin is president of Yale University.

© 2008