International-education initiatives are commonly seen as institutional-level activities and they still are, mostly. But we have been seeing increasing interest in the centralization of some international education activities at the system level. This growing involvement of systems makes us pause to wonder the potential merits and challenges of such initiatives.

By “system” we are thinking about multiple higher-education institutions that are coordinated through common governance and financial structures, while retaining a high degree of institutional autonomy. Our own State University of New York is one example, with 64 campuses across the state coordinated through a central system office. Systems are common in the United States, with 40 out of the 50 states operating at least one (some states, such as California, have multiple public higher-education systems). Because most…

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