How Much Do Branch Campuses Really Matter?

What should we make of the news this week that Michigan State is closing its Dubai campus? In my view, not too much. If one satellite campus’s demise meant that others were bound to fail, MSU would never have ventured into the United Arab Emirates in the first place. It is no secret that foreign branches don’t always work out. The boom in U.S. branch campuses in Japan in the 1980s ended in a whimper, with only Temple University’s outpost left standing. In the late 2000s, a branch of Australia’s University of New South Wales didn’t last past its first year in Singapore when enrollment projections didn’t pan out. Early last year, George Mason also abandoned its small campus in the Emirate of Ras al Khaimah over disputes with its partner, the for-profit firm Edrak, over how soon the institution might reasonably be expected to turn a profit. And some branch campuses are stillborn; in 2005, the year before Nigel became vice chancellor, the University of Warwick abandoned its ambitious plans to create a satellite campus in Singapore amid faculty concerns over academic freedom and financial viability.

Yet other satellite campuses seem to be doing very well, thank you, from the University of Nottingham’s branch in Ningbo, China, to the assorted U.S. boutique elites, including Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, congregated on the edge of Doha in Qatar’s Education City.

Certainly, a massive infusion of subsidies from oil-rich governments doesn’t hurt, as in Qatar and in Abu Dhabi, where NYU is setting up shop with huge state financial support. But as The National reported, even in the profit-driven environment of Dubai International Academic City, an institution like Edinburgh, Scotland-based Heriot-Watt University seems to be making a go of it, with enrollment much higher – and fees significantly lower – than at Michigan State’s foundering campus.

So do satellite campuses work or not? As with so many of the great research questions, there is a simple two-word answer: it depends. Interest in earning Western degrees remains high, and the appeal for students around the world of earning a prized credential while staying close to home seems sure to continue. At the same time, market demand for particular degrees at particular price points varies enormously — all the more so at a time of enormous economic instability. Even where governments are footing the bill, long-term sustainability is a question mark. The host nation’s regulatory regime also matters a lot, as does the need of Western institutions to maintain quality, which can be a difficult proposition when setting up shop far from their home campuses.

The bottom line: Branch campuses are at heart entrepreneurial ventures. Some will succeed, some will fail, and it will take time for universities to figure out which models, if any, are best replicated in which locations.

But there is a final point to be made, and an important one. Despite the fascination that these 160 or so mostly small outposts hold for globally minded universities and curious journalists, branch campuses are only a small piece of a much bigger global higher ed puzzle. China quintupled its student population from 1997 to 2007, as Yale President Rick Levin notes in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs. South Korea and Saudi Arabia are devoting enormous resources to creating what they hope will become world-class institutions. France and Germany are working hard to restore the lost luster of their universities. For-profit postsecondary institutions are expanding around the world by leaps and bounds. A record number of students are going abroad to seek degrees. Yes, branch campuses are an important indicator of global demand for Western higher education in a world with fewer borders than ever. They are surely worth watching, and I would not be surprised if, amid intermittent setbacks, they gradually expand in one form or another. But compared to the other, large-scale trends in worldwide higher education, it seems to me that branch campuses just aren’t that big a deal.