Other countries have long looked to the United States as a model for higher education, but American college leaders and public officials could learn from their counterparts abroad, according to a new report from the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley.

The report, “The Crisis of the Publics,” is the result of a symposium held on the Berkeley campus in March that assembled experts from Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States. The participants concluded that despite cultural, economic, and political differences between countries, there may be approaches to issues such as student access and financial support for colleges that leap national boundaries.

For example, the report suggests that American public universities should study after-graduation fee systems in Australia, where fee payments are deferred until after students graduate and are contingent on students’ income hitting a certain level. Matriculation agreements and higher-education accountability systems used in other countries also are worth examination, the report suggests.

“Little systemic analysis exists about how the sources of change and the reforms adopted or advanced in one country derive from or impact other countries, let alone how they might inform U.S. higher education,” the report’s editors write. “American higher education and American political culture have tended to be insular in their approaches to policy making and ideas on reform.” —Karin Fischer