"Higher Education: Free degrees to fly"

Economist.com Higher Education article (Subscription required.)


Growth of international higher education is soaring: 2 million university students—approaching 2% of the world's total of 100 million, "according to the International Finance Corporation—were studying outside their home country in 2003. Since the late 1990s the higher-education market has been growing by 7% a year. Annual fee income alone is now an estimated $30 billion. Private, profit-seeking institutions are still a minority, but almost all universities are beginning to compete for talent and money. That is breeding independence of government, both financially and psychologically; inexorably, the state's role is shrinking."