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1 Introduction

The advent of the pandemic forced educators across the world to innovatively and rapidly adapt the delivery of traditional face-to-face courses and educational content in order to continue to serve and engage students (Dreesen et al., 2020; United Nations, 2020). In particular, it forced many higher education institutions to offer their programmes remotely instead of in-person (Ali, 2020). Undergraduate and graduate students have regularly been forced during periods of lockdown to work externally as higher education providers worked assiduously and adaptively to provide continuity of learning and assessment. Agile instructors provided courses, advice, support and conducted meetings from home or off-campus locations. In additional to education providers, a large proportion of businesses and organisations across communities were also forced to develop ways to remotely transact their interactions online with staff located away from traditional workplaces (Lund et al., 2020).

In this context, as we continued to learn to live with and understand the vagaries of the pandemic, many higher education institutions shifted to dramatically different models of educational delivery than the traditional structures that existed before the pandemic. Whilst remote or distance education was not an entirely new mode of instruction, it had been an alternative delivery for many organisations over recent decades. Open or TV/Radio universities have previously offered distance, remote and online learning for decades in many different countries (Cuban, 1986). Many universities have also been offering Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for students from around the world for quite some time (Bonk, 2011; Bonk et al., 2015). Additionally, there have been abundant learning resources online, freely available or for a small fee (Zhao, 2021).

But not until the emergence of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020 did almost all higher education institutions engage in forms of remote learning for students as the dominant mode of learning. Continuity of learning experiences ensured that remote learning quickly became a staple and provided continuity for most students and faculty members. Higher education institutions made significant investments in ensuring that fundamental remote learning was accessible and effective. Many institutions developed parallel educational approaches, purchased new technology platforms, developed new partnerships with others, and provided ‘just-in-time’ professional training and support for their faculty and students to engage in remote learning. Whilst it was of variable quality across all providers, it enabled most students to progress through courses.

As the world learns to live with COVID-19, it is understandable that for many students, faculty, and university administrators there is a desire to revert to in-person pre-pandemic education delivery models. We strongly argue, however, that a return to the ‘old normal’ is not likely or even a necessity as, for better and for worse, the world has inextricably changed and that aspects of remote learning have been welcomed by many other students, faculty, and administrators who believe that they have benefited and will seek to retain those advantages (Durak & Çankaya, 2020). Importantly, remote learning as a safe-guard may have to exist long into the future for all education institutions, not only because it is an effective mode of learning, but also because schools and departments may well need to close for many reasons in the future. For example, climate change may cause extreme weather events to take place a lot more often, which can force campus closures much longer and more frequently than before. COVID-19 or, as is being predicted, other pandemics may impact again, for which educators should be much better prepared.

Moreover, well organised and relevant remote learning, in addition to in-person learning, may have other benefits such as reduced costs for students, more flexible learning schedules, greater capacity for collaboration amongst higher education institutions, and broader participation of students and faculty located in different places around the world. The driving need to provide different and more flexible modes of learning delivery will create opportunities and challenges for institutions, including the possibility of less demand for physical campuses and communities where a university is located. Such a movement could also stimulate intense global competition amongst higher education institutions as costs are potentially reduced and high-quality education becomes accessible to more students.

In this chapter, we explore the potential future of higher education with the perspective that students can study successfully in almost any location and be distributed globally. We focus on ways to attract and support globally distributed students and the potential consequences of these changes. We outline and discuss the emergence of a new and opportunistic higher education landscape that is likely to catalyse from our experiences and learnings during the pandemic.

2 Global Distribution of Students

The pandemic has caused significant disruption to international students all over the world (Firang, 2020; Hari et al., 2021; Haugen & Lehmann, 2020; Mercado, 2020; Mok et al., 2021; Yıldırım et al., 2021). The multiple lockdowns due to the pandemic forced universities in many countries to close campuses and rapidly move courses online. International students had virtually no option but to remain in their home country and to engage through online courses.

Another significant disruption for students who left their campus and returned home between semesters was that they could then not return because of border closures and disruptions in international travel (West, 2020). For example, the United States saw a 72% decrease in the number of new international students enrolled in 2020 when compared to calendar year 2019 (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2021). Australian universities also saw a decline of over 200,000 international students in 2021 (ICEF Monitor, 2021). Other countries such as Canada, the UK, and New Zealand have seen similar declines.

As vaccines became available and more widespread, many countries opened borders to their international students, notwithstanding the likelihood that the impact and instability of the pandemic may continue for some time as new variants continue to emerge and force countries to limit travel again and again. The virtual educational experience that the pandemic has facilitated, in essence, has potentially identified a major opportunity for a more open global education market for international students. Most higher education providers have now had direct experience of offering many of their traditional courses online which have been accessed by students from domestic and international locations. Many educators have learned that during the pandemic, students can be in almost any place on earth with effective tuition possible. As long as students have access to the necessary technology, they were able to take courses from their home institutions and the great majority made progress towards their degrees. The emergence of remote courses has also led to the emergence of next practises in pedagogies.

The provision of remote options for learning applied to virtually all higher education institutions, regardless of whether they had international students or not.

3 Serving Globally Distributed Students

To serve globally distributed students, institutions of higher education have previously, and more recently, been forced to develop enhanced learning modes and platforms. The affordances of the twenty-first Century have provided us with emerging and more accessible telecommunication technologies which has meant that offering online courses has greater potential to create diverse communities and provide social and emotional connection in addition to providing digital content.

Whilst universities have previously utilised learning management systems to enable academics to manage at least parts of their courses online, the pivot to virtual learning as the dominant mode during the pandemic has required an uplift in the quality of digital pedagogy, personalisation, collaboration and student agency in order to build and maintain engagement. To enable synchronous learning opportunities, there were platforms including Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and a range of others continue to emerge. Advances in technology, however important, are not enough as for the most-part students have been forced to replace interpersonal on-campus learning experiences with virtual interactive learning.

Whilst in the initial stages of the pandemic, most academics out of necessity provided purely online courses, some have had a Hybrid and Flexible or HyFlex model of learning (Binnewies & Wang, 2019), with some students in the classroom whilst other students were located in other places, and with synchronous and asynchronous content. Many online courses have required students to attend synchronous meetings and complete asynchronous assignments. They have also drawn upon, required videos, books, and other materials, including the conducting of experiments, and carrying out other research tasks depending on the programme.

Some universities, such as Tulane (USA), have also enacted other models in addition to online courses (Yang, 2020). For example, some have developed partnerships with local universities in students’ home countries to create a sense of community and support in locations where their students could gather. The local universities offered more than a site for student gatherings as they provided classrooms for students to take online courses together. Moreover, some universities allowed students to take courses offered by the local universities for their degree programmes, which in promoted institutional partnerships and allowed credit transfer.

Other opportunities for collaboration between institutions have also evolved in recent times. Some proactive universities created opportunities for students to participate in activities that require face-to-face interactions such as science and engineering experiments. When students were not able to do so in their home institutions because of distance and lab closures, they have been able to carry out the necessary in-person experiments in local institutions.

Of course, students’ needs go beyond academic offerings. They need advice, counselling, support and to engage in critical conversations with colleagues and academics throughout their courses. Whilst these sessions would generally be face-to-face, as we navigated through the pandemic this contact also became remote and online.

Library access has been another area where students have needed help. Whilst many publications have gone online in recent years and many older books and periodicals have been digitalised, there are still many publications that can only be accessible in print. When universities went online during the pandemic, students’ access to these materials became more challenging. Universities have, however, found different and innovative ways to extend library access to students during the pandemic but like much of the innovation and adaptation that has occurred in relation to remote learning during this pandemic, solutions have not always been perfect or a sufficient replacement as the library services provided were not at the level previously provided to students before the pandemic.

What we have learned as a result of the immediate and mostly unplanned diversion to online learning in response to pandemic lockdowns, is that without too much initial finesse and preparation, it has fundamentally kept all education sectors operational and able to progress students in their learning. With more opportunity to strategies and learn from these challenging experiences, it is now time to use this experience to provide greater opportunities and options for students and academics across the world. As has been noted throughout history, we should never waste a crisis!

4 Future Possibilities

The global distribution of students and the various ways universities have developed to serve these students in recent challenging times provides great insights for imagining the future of higher education. Whilst online learning has evolved into a viable learning option for millions of students who have previously taken MOOCs and other online courses externally in recent years, it was not until the pandemic that nearly all universities began serving nearly all of their students from an online format. This pandemic-inspired transformation has initially increased costs and presented greater financial pressures for universities and their faculty, but the intense and immediate challenges have also made universities become more adaptive and innovative in order to develop new models of learning in serving students who are not on campus.

Whilst it is difficult to predict if COVID-19 will ever be completely eradicated, most countries opened campuses and students are able to return but not to pre-pandemic conditions as it remains possible that these campuses may close again due to further outbreaks of COVID-19 variants. It has also been widely predicted that it is likely that new pandemics will emerge or some other disease can, and will, affect the human community and, of course, the continuity of formal education.

Current and future geopolitical conflicts amongst countries may also prevent the movement of students to various countries to their desired places of study. Also possible is that universities, along with communities in general, may well be impacted by the rapidly emerging consequences of climate changes. Some universities already close for extremely cold and snowy days, floods, and extremely hot days which, in some countries are creating severe summer fire seasons.

The likelihood of campus closures in the future should make institutions of higher education think more strategically and flexibly before they simply discard their online systems built during the pandemic. Importantly, however, they should be very proud of the agility and courage their faculties took to develop initially these online courses and programmes. This has not been an easy achievement as academic teams rapidly invested enormous time and energy, often without previous experience or technical expertise to address student needs and course requirements. The pandemic rapidly changed all of that and it would be a strategic error for universities to stop this movement and simply return to in-person education.

There are, of course, compelling justifications and imperatives for universities to continue to invest and work on their future online offerings in addition to providing a rich and engaging student experience on campus. For a significant number of institutions, it will continue to be desirable to have undergraduate and graduate students participate in on-campus experiences offering value from cultural, social, academic, and psychological perspectives. It is also valuable for students to develop relationships amongst themselves, faculty, and other professionals on campus. Familiarity with the physical infrastructure, buildings, and history can have educational value and create affiliation and a sense of belonging. In considering what optimal learning experiences could look like as we move forward, universities will need to also imagine a different kind of education in the future, at least for portions of their students.

This post-pandemic future for many will recognise the opportunities provided by building upon remote learning models developed during COVID-19. Instead of as an emergency response, institutions of higher education will need to deliberately develop a global campus to serve students whether they are located in their homes, internationally and domestically, or on the university campus. This future has already been embraced by some universities, but it is far from being universal. We are arguing that such a development is necessary for the sustainability of many universities and to that end, the pandemic experiences can serve as a great foundation.

Such a future would not only serve on-campus students better should there be any closures, but also, and more importantly, serves a potentially new and somewhat neglected population of future students. These students will be globally distributed like many of the students during the pandemic. These students may also be those who are unable to leave their home countries to attend a foreign university. For some students who may not be able to afford the costs of studying abroad, an online experience will create accessibility and the opportunity to enrol in quality courses not otherwise available.

A student may not be able to study overseas for a multitude of reasons including their local employment, socio-economic capacity, geopolitical impact, medical issues, or family circumstances. There may also be some students who wish to have a foreign education but would like to build social and cultural relationships and potential employment opportunities at home. This is especially true for young students who have strong connections in their home country and wish to advance their career trajectory.

Potentially, the market for these students who have arguably never truly been served well, could from a global perspective, create new opportunities for all universities to attract high achieving students from beyond their shores. Until now, it could be argued that the reputations of distant, open, or online universities have not caught up with traditional universities, nor has their quality of education. MOOCs have only been part of informal learning and have not formed degree programmes in the traditional sense. A few universities have developed online campuses but by and large, traditional universities have not comprehensively entered the market.

Many universities will have to enter the market for a number of reasons. The first is finance. In the United States, public funding for the majority of four-year and two-year colleges has been in steady decline. A report by the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities says:

Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the school year ending in 2018 was more than $6.6 billion below what it was in 2008 just before the Great Recession fully took hold, after adjusting for inflation.[1] In the most difficult years after the recession, colleges responded to significant funding cuts by increasing tuition, reducing faculty, limiting course offerings, and in some cases closing campuses. Funding has rebounded somewhat, but costs remain high and services in some places have not returned. (Mitchell, Leachman, & Saenz, 2019)

The situation has been exacerbated because of the pandemic. It has caused many institutions to lose revenue and increase spending. States, with declining economies, have begun to cut funding to higher education. Even with federal assistance, a large number of higher education institutions face budget crises (Yuen, 2020).

In recent decades international students have become a major source of increasing revenue in order to maintain growth and research despite the decline of local revenue streams. According to an article by the president of Pace University, Mark Krislove, the number of U.S. high-school graduates is expected to grow by about 0.2% but international students can potentially grow by 6%. “That means international students are becoming increasingly important to keep our classes full, our tuition revenue up, and our institutions thriving” (Krislov, 2019). International students also make a huge economic impact. In the United States, international students directly contributed over $38 billion to the economy and supported more than 400,000 jobs during 2019–2020. The economic contribution was over $40 billion in 2018 (NAFSA, 2021).

But then COVID-19 came along! Many universities and colleges were confronted by a disappearing population of international students. For them to survive and thrive in the post-pandemic era, just trying to recover the pre-pandemic number of international students will not be sufficient for a number of reasons. Firstly, the wide variation in quality of remote learning experiences for existing students may make others hesitant about applying to foreign universities, as could the way particular countries have coped with or without lockdowns during the pandemic. In addition, no one can be sure when the pandemic will ever be under control enough for certain and ongoing international travels and when governments will resume issuing visas from a range of countries as before.

Secondly, international students may decide to pursue local options. The pandemic and resulting economic changes may force many students who would aspire to study abroad to consider local options because they no longer can afford the costs. The pandemic has certainly caused drastic economic disruptions and resulted in economic decline (Dam, 2020). Such decline will certainly affect income of certain families.

Thirdly, the current geopolitical battles may cause students to become more hesitant about exploring study abroad opportunities. For example, China, the world’s second largest economy and largest source of international students, may, for example, permit fewer students to pursue their studies overseas for geopolitical and nationalistic reasons.

The fundamental message to universities and colleges that expect a return of international students is that they are unlikely to return to all previous destinations, at least not to the pre-pandemic levels unless the university concerned is able to enhance its value proposition and provide guarantees that any future lockdowns or associated issues will provide better support and tuition to those students intending to travel. Whilst universities may still have the students who are already enrolled in their programmes learning from a distance, most Western countries have initiated the enrolment of new students who are seeking to come to the physical campus in the short to medium term despite the reputations of some institutions arguably being challenged based on their performance during the first two years of the pandemic. Thus, it is wise for them to pursue additional cost saving contingencies include downsizing the university faculty and staff, shrinking operations, and even closing down some campuses. For the more innovative universities however, more positive possibilities can and will include cutting-edge approaches to operating virtual international campuses that serve students who are globally distributed.

4.1 Serving Students Culturally

The objective of a “global campus” is to serve students internationally, which is fundamentally different from serving international students on the physical campus. In this new context, a global campus primarily delivers high-quality and interactive tuition online. It exists across different time zones and geographical borders and its faculty and students can conceivably work from any place on earth. The courses delivered are customised to meet the needs of students across and in different parts of the world.

Despite the pre-pandemic growth of international students across many universities, very few higher education institutions actually deeply considered or changed their academic programmes for international students, although they may have adjusted other small cultural items such as food in the cafeteria. The assumption has primarily been that international students come to the physical campus for what it already offers. The underlying proposition has been that students travel to experience a different culture, a different campus, a different education, and a different physical experience from their home country. Thus, no wholesale changes have been considered to be necessary.

The emerging conception of a global campus is substantially different to a traditional in-county international offering. It aims to deliver fit-for-purpose and highly engaging bespoke courses in different locations across the world. These students remain domiciled in their own cultures and communities whilst taking courses or enrolled in academic programmes of a foreign institution. A global campus will therefore, need to be much more than a pre-pandemic online provider as they will, in addition to the academic content, carefully craft the experiential and humanistic elements of the programmes and experiences they are prepared to offer.

An initial and highly important consideration relates to infusing the culture of the country, the local city or community, and the university to students who are located in different parts of the world. Of course, there are content and skills that can be considered universal without much culture attached to it, however, international students seeking foreign courses possess a strong desire to experience the culture of the country and the community in which the university is located. To enact this, smart and invigorated Global Universities will build their niche through multi-dimensional and personalised online experiences that move the dial on rapidly devised pandemic-inspired online responses.

Digital delivery is, of course, different from a physical experience, but online offerings can to a certain degree carry cultural elements. The deployment of expert online instructors will reflect certain parts of the university through their design of innovative course content, emerging digital pedagogical approaches, and personalised interactions with students to embody all that is expected from a high-performing institution.

But instructors are not sufficient. A global campus will also need to develop other cultural events online such as creating student gatherings periodically. These gatherings can be purely about the local and university culture in addition to the instructional programme. Recognising local celebrations, history, food, music, arts, or other significant events that feature the culture of the locality of the university will provide students with local connections and experience.

Additionally, global digital universities can build physical events and opportunities for students who are able to come to the physical campus for short periods of time. University programmes could include month-long events for students to attend for academic and cultural experiences. Students who are unable to leave their country of origin for long periods of time could take advantage of these short supplementary visits. The opportunity for cultural immersion and the building of affiliation and community would be a significant purpose for visits in order to enhance the student experience if desired.

4.2 Serving Students Academically

Serving students academically, intuitively seems easier than serving them culturally, but it must be recognised that the challenges are interlinked. For example, as the online course experiences during the pandemic, suggest international students located in different time zones can be highly challenged by the timeliness of synchronous class meetings, office hours, and private counselling sessions. Not all universities have been able to deal with these issues effectively and have generally only offered these events based on the time zone of the university. For many isolated students in some time zones during the pandemic it has been extremely difficult to manage classes and effective participation in meetings unless they get up extremely early or stay up extremely late, which has not always been conducive to academic success and well-being.

Operating a high-performing global campus will require significant changes to the student experiences of many during the pandemic. The access to courses and connection to the university cannot be simply offered within the same time frame following the local time zone of the university. Instead, considerations must be given to students’ locations and how they can be functionally engaged. Whilst it is impossible to develop a schedule that suits all students in all locations, there are different ways to make the schedule better. For example, the schedule can be established with a focus on a better blend of asynchronous and synchronous learning whilst building local interactive communities where students can connect from within their domestic environments. Synchronous meetings can be developed for small group discussion and meetings with instructors at negotiated times. It will be essential for truly global universities to put the student at the centre of course delivery methodology, pedagogy, and practises.

It is also possible for universities to develop different programmes to serve students academically. The pandemic model of instruction has provided some flavour of this possibility. Universities will need to develop enduring local partnerships for academic purposes. As has been done during the pandemic on an emerging basis, global universities can partner with universities in the students’ home country to offer some courses of the programmes and serve as gatherers of small group discussions. Local partnership universities can also provide lab services and integrated workplace learning placements.

Another possibility is to develop joint programmes with universities located in different countries. Universities have traditionally developed joint programmes with some universities, but they are far from global. Many joint programmes are with one or two universities in a limited number of countries. To effectively serve globally distributed students requires universities to develop a world-wide network of partnerships, which can be extremely challenging in the beginning because of different interests and the variation of traditions in different universities. Such a global network of partnerships, however, will enable students from different parts of the world to have access to quality courses and programmes from different universities in different locations.

Joint programmes can have a mixture of courses and educational experiences offered by different institutions. The student experience can be greatly enhanced through the provision of a mixture of these experiences based on their personalised interests and professional needs. Such courses could be made up of a variety of different programmes from undergraduate and graduate programmes. The programmes are offered and owned by different institutions, but they share courses that can be more bespoke and better customised which becomes a strong value proposition for students seeking to maximise employment opportunities in a more globalised working environment.

4.3 Preparing Staff for Globally Distributed Students

Teaching globally and online has been a relatively new experience for many university faculty. The pandemic forced them to move online globally but, in most cases there was not time for extensive preparation, discussion, or planning. The move to an online learning environment took courage, commitment, and in some cases, a leap of faith as many intuitively created their own methodology of teaching online. Many of the online courses, at least initially, were based around transferring current face-to-face courses to online courses. There is not necessarily anything wrong with such offerings in an emergency, but the courses can be more engaging when better designed with the student at the centre.

For example, a study of UK higher education during the pandemic found educators experienced an abundance of afflictions due to the rapid transition to online education and entry-level use of digital pedagogies. They suggest that the online movement has resulted in significant dysfunctionality and disturbance to their pedagogical roles and personal lives (Watermeyer et al., 2021). Experiences of faculty in higher education in other countries have had similar experiences and challenges. The same study also found affordances, which means that migration to online teaching also has some benefits for teachers and students.

Extensive preparation and planning can help ease the afflictions and enhance the affordances. When operating a global campus strategically, faculty and staff should be prepared accordingly. Preparation and planning should include contemporary digital resources and online pedagogy. Much research has been conducted in relation to online learning and teaching for quite some time now (Zhao, 2020). There is a growing body of evidence and advice emerging in relation to effective digital and online teaching. There is also developing research on the HyFlex model (Beatty, 2019; Binnewies & Wang, 2019). It is very important and productive for teaching academics to review and reflect on the emerging digital research in preparation for a more engaging and personalised student online experience.

Teaching preparation must also include a change of cultural and social mindset. Faculty cannot look at the globally distributed students the same way as their traditional local students. When students are taking online courses they will be in very different contexts. When students are in different locations, their local culture and conditions can have a great impact on them, which can cause some challenges in interacting with each other and the course. A deeply considered approach to preparation and facilitation should help faculty members develop a global mindset when bringing together diverse communities that can effectively work and learn together.

5 Possible Impacts

Despite challenges that have been experienced during the initial stages of the pandemic, it is highly likely that many higher education providers and governments will collectively move to reclaim and attract larger cohorts of globally distributed students. More traditionally orientated higher education institutions will also have to accept this inevitability and plan for attraction of globally distributed students in what may turn out to be a more highly contested market with the emergence of a different business models through global universities. Governments or businesses planning to build new face-to-face orientated institutions may need to consider this potential change and plan accordingly. Such a movement towards globally distributed students will have a number of significant impacts on the institutions, their local communities, and their countries.

5.1 Shrinking Physical Campus

It is possible for universities investing in enhanced global delivery though high-quality digital learning that parts of the physical campus may be redundant due to the potential global distribution of students. Universities will have to think and plan for such a change if they are to compete for remote learning decentralised international students. If students can have access to high-quality education online from wherever they are, many are likely to stay home and enjoy the convenience and the safety of their country of origin. Of course, there will always be significant numbers of students who will prefer to immerse themselves in a full student experience by attending a physical campus, but for many universities a number may become smaller. More importantly, the potential market for more globally distributed students preferring a quality online experience could be very large for successful institutions. Higher education institutions, particularly those that are economically challenged in the current environment and finding it difficult to attract in-country international students, will also need to consider attracting this new and emerging market of global students.

With a shrinking physical campus comes a shrinking need for student dorms, cafeteria, classrooms, offices, and other physical infrastructure. For universities and colleges that have massive physical infrastructure, the possibility of unoccupied space may also become a liability or an opportunity to redevelop spaces to open the traditional university to connect with the surrounding community or city. At the very least, and with an eye to future student market trends, universities must reconsider the future of new and existing infrastructure. Newer institutions must consider if they want to build more buildings or invest more in building a virtual global campus with cutting-edge technology. It may well be that a market-edge will be garnered through reductions in space and infrastructure which could well enable cashed-up universities to compete with greater agility in the online delivery market.

A shrinking campus may, however, have a significant impact on the local community. It is highly likely that businesses will be affected without a large population of proximal students. There will be fewer people in the community and thus grocery stores, restaurants, bars, transportation, and apartments will all experience declining demand. The declining demand can gradually lead to the decline of the local community, which means university towns may quite possibly change dramatically in the future.

5.2 Faculty Changes

University academics may also experience significant changes as a result of increased education offerings online. When students are more globally distributed, an increasing percentage of teaching and interaction will be online. This means that faculty must become digitally competent and savvy with online teaching. It also means that faculty develop a perspective that serves students well as global citizens rather than members of local communities.

Faculty has always been meeting physically and locally before the pandemic. They also gather socially locally. The pandemic has changed that forcing them to meet online. If higher education moves more predominantly to serve globally distributed students, faculty may be distributed as well. It is not entirely new that universities have their staff located in different parts of the world, but this can become more common for universities. If so, universities will have to rely on digital innovation to build their faculty and manage their work. As it will need to be advantageous for global students, universities will also need to invest in the creation of an engaging culture that continues to unify their faculty and staff.

5.3 Institutional Competition and Collaboration

Higher education institutions have been typically built to serve students locally and nationally. Although international students have always been part of the student body at most universities, their primary customers remain citizens of their nation and largely members of the local communities where the universities are located. Globally distributed students can have a significant impact on the nature and continued evolution of higher education institutions. They may still serve local students, but declining government investment is likely to force them to serve more international students online. When institutions move to online and take on a more global orientation, there will inevitably be significant competition amongst the institutions. The competition will not only be amongst institutions that have similar business models or from the same country, but also involve higher education institutions from countries that have not been typically destinations for international students because newer colleges and universities will be part of the global chains of institutions to collaboratively offer education to students in different countries.

The competition could well be fierce. Higher education institutions from all over the world will have an expanding opportunity to be creative and innovative in developing programmes for students distributed across the globe. These programmes must meet the diverse needs of students as well as potentially the needs of local businesses, governments, and other entities because students seeking employment will need to be judged by local entities. Beyond programmes, competition can happen in other areas such as costs, services, and reputation.

Competition is unavoidable. So is collaboration. Universities and colleges will have to collaborate and create more connected partnerships in order to serve the globally distributed students. They will have to build joint programmes and services, trade courses and credits, and co-develop local programmes. Each institution will have to be smart in deciding with whom to collaborate with and what programmes they want to co-offer.

5.4 A Brighter Future for All Students

If efforts to serve students globally are taken seriously by higher education institutions around the world, students from all countries can have a greater range of options to suit their educational needs. Students in all parts of the world will have a range of alternative opportunities to attend a range of previously unavailable colleges and universities. New and restructured colleges and universities will have diverse and rapidly emerging qualities and reputations for their programmes. Currently, too many students are stuck in poor conditions and are forced to attend lower performing and less desirable institutions despite their ambitions.

If more global campuses are developed, with the world’s leading higher education institutions taking the lead, students from around the world could have access to higher quality education. If the costs are well controlled, students from poor conditions could conceivably gain attendance at reputable institutions. These students would also be able to take courses with students from other countries and develop global connections and opportunities. Such experiences could ultimately bring a more peaceful and prosperous future across the globe.

6 The Future of Higher Education: A Summary

The pandemic forced higher education sectors across the world to become almost universally online for differing periods of time. It also forced many students to take classes and study from home. Whilst the pandemic may well be eventually brought under control through vaccinations, anti-virals, and other treatments, it is unlikely that all students, international and domestic, will return to campus learning as they did before.

The incredible impact of this pandemic across almost all facets of our livelihood, almost counter-intuitively, potentially creates a great opportunity for universities and colleges around the world as they seek to extend and expand their hastily implemented post-pandemic online offerings to create global campuses. These campuses will serve students personally, virtually, and globally. Potential global campus enrolled students, however, include not only those who could afford to study abroad, but also those who are unable to afford the time and money to go abroad. This population is potentially huge and if attracted, could transform higher education from serving local and national students into more equitable institutions to serve globally distributed students.

Such a movement is possible and indeed necessary because of the financial situations in many countries and geopolitical tensions amongst nations in the world, but such a comprehensive movement will not be easy or straight-forward. In addition to the challenges of conservative higher education institutions and the practical actions needed to make it happen, there are also potential impediments contained within national education systems, political constraints, and cultural values. There are also issues of instructional languages, which may be helped with Artificial Intelligence and machine translation.

In summary, we believe that higher education must pay attention to the changing needs and aspirations of students across the world. As educators, we need to consider how to serve the globally distributed, who could seek to become a significant part of higher education in order to fulfil their own aspirations but to also contribute to the economic growth and living standards within their own countries. In the face of an aggressively competitive international market, agile and smart universities and colleges that can pivot by expanding their business model will thrive whilst others who revert to pre-pandemic practises may continue to be challenged.