Challenges, opportunities for Korean student mobility

International student mobility is on the rise. East Asian students are particularly mobile, and the number electing to remain within the region is growing. Regional education hubs are a means to compete for internationally mobile students.

A case in point is South Korea’s Incheon Global Campus, or IGC, part of a larger business, research and leisure hub in the Incheon Free Economic Zone, near the Incheon metropolitan area. IGC is envisioned as a place to foster future leaders and nurture a modernised international workforce by collaborating with selected universities from around the world.

Managed by the IGC Foundation, cutting-edge campus facilities are in place and more are under construction on 30 hectares.

Degree programmes from up to 10 foreign universities will be offered. Programmes are operated independently although universities share campus resources as well as some administrative and student services.

The launch of this experiment in higher education proceeds apace, with student mobility part of both its opportunities and challenges.

South Korea and student mobility

South Korea ranks first in sending students abroad of any industrialised country, though numbers are in slight decline. Inbound student mobility is on the rise. Given low birth rates, South Korea will not have enough domestic students to meet university registration quotas in the future.

The IGC is part of a larger strategy to keep domestic students in-country and attract foreign students. We have found that the IGC consortia approach allows for mobility that may better the odds for success of in-country investors and foreign partners.

The collaboration between foreign institutions and the IGC Foundation is unique. Four foreign universities have already agreed to participate. These institutions have formed a consortium that collaborates in many aspects of IGC operations.

The IGC model never intended that a foreign partner university attempt to duplicate the breadth of academic programming at their home campus. Embedded in the vision is an umbrella design that resembles a comprehensive university allowing IGC to offer numerous academic programmes hosted by different foreign universities.

Market share

In evaluating an opportunity of this sort, home institutions must decide which of the programmes they offer are best suited for export. In this case Incheon Free Economic Zone, or IFEZ, officials had a general understanding of the strengths of the universities invited and asked that we focus first on those programmes. It was an approach that worked well.

Still, concerns remain about market share. Unsurprisingly, the programmes we brought to IGC are already offered by established universities across East Asia. Any erroneous notion that students would rush to enrol because they were starved of an academic programme that was unavailable to them or because of our university brand evaporated.

We believe that programmes exported abroad should fit a university’s institutional vision and mission. The home campus must be confident in their quality and identify the value they bring to the sponsoring country. Universities need to be humble because the sponsoring country can do without them.

IFEZ and the IGC Foundation have done much to make the campus successful, but it is the consortium of foreign universities that must provide quality programmes in line with their respective business models.

A case in point is recognition that duplication of courses is fiscally unsound and antithetical to a desire to provide opportunities for students to have an international education, more broadly.

A course-sharing agreement broadens the range of courses available and promotes timely graduation. High quality foreign student talent may also be attracted knowing that their individual academic programme will be enhanced by opportunities to study outside any specific university.

IGC students have the advantages of knowing international peers, being exposed to international business and not needing to forego opportunities to network at home.

We found it interesting that so many in our entering class studied in international high schools. Sixty percent of the entering class of George Mason University – Korea came from international schools in Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Canada, Uzbekistan and others.

That we would be a destination for Korean nationals who had studied outside the country was unexpected by the government, but bodes well for attracting talent and increasing enrolment in the face of a declining birth rate.

Public relations

Recruitment and public relations go hand in hand. A foreign university must learn quickly how to navigate multiple media markets (paper, electronic, television) in-country. Most want a story. Why are you here and what do you do differently? It is imperative that a foreign university can answer such basic questions.

Admission decisions for Mason-Korea are made by the home campus to help guarantee institutional and programme integrity.

Until a foreign institution is fully embedded in the host country, it must expect to receive late applications from students who had simply not considered applying because they were not aware of the opportunity or because their focus was elsewhere.

It is important to be flexible in the early stages as the programme establishes itself. If the goal is to expand recruitment beyond the host country, it is important to also be aware of other governments’ policies regarding degrees. It may be necessary to receive official certification from another country’s equivalent of a ministry of education for a degree to be recognised.

An institution must also coordinate recruitment efforts between home and foreign campuses. Most home campuses are themselves competing for the same new students as their foreign campus.

It is vital to make sure the different messages are communicated effectively to avoid confusing prospective applicants. It is essential that the foreign campus offer essential support services for university life as well as academics.

While the IGC Foundation does have responsibility for dormitories and campus life, Mason-Korea also sponsors its own student life programmes. We find that students focused most on the quality of instruction they receive, but that opportunities to learn and relax outside the classroom are also important for academic success.

Government and education leaders in East Asia today seek to create options for internationally mobile students to consider studying ‘abroad at home’.

In light of robust interest in English language education and the proven value of promoting in-bound mobility, properly managed and adequately funded education hubs are strategic ways both to internationalise and add more students to global and national talent pools.

* Matthew Zingraff is President and Provost, Mason-Korea, and Anne Schiller is Vice President for Global Strategies, George Mason University. They spoke at the International Association of University Presidents triennial conference in Yokohama from 11-14 June.