SRHE Blog

The Society for Research into Higher Education

Tag Archives: international branch campuses


by Leave a comment

Reconceptualising transnational education through decolonial approaches

by Nilakshi Das

Transnational Education (TNE) represents a rapidly expanding form of cross-border provision, underpinned by an economic imaginary that positions the UK as a ‘key player’ in the global higher education market. While earlier internationalisation strategies focused primarily on bringing overseas students to Britain, TNE reflects a shift towards delivering British higher education to students globally through offshore provisions. The rapid expansion of TNE has elicited growing academic debate about its potential to reproduce the political, economic and epistemic hegemony of the Global North, reinscribing earlier colonial hierarchies and patterns of dependency.

Before the emergence of TNE, the internationalisation of UK higher education was primarily organised through the academic mobility of overseas students, shaped by Britain’s imperial and post-imperial educational networks. During the 1960s, technical assistance programmes and scholarship schemes, such as the Commonwealth Scholarship programme, facilitated student mobility to British universities. In the 1970s, as overseas student numbers gradually increased, differential student fees were introduced alongside tightening immigration regulations, a shift that continued throughout the Thatcher government in the 1980s into the present day. By the late 1990s, the University of Nottingham had established one of the earliest overseas branches, with the general idea that the curriculum in the host country would largely mirror the home institution. From the 2000s onwards, TNE expanded in scope and provision through franchised programmes, joint and dual degrees, distance and online courses in new markets, particularly across the Middle East and Asia. These arrangements allowed UK universities to expand their global presence and competitiveness beyond traditional overseas student recruitment.

Political economy of TNE and latest policy ambitions

The latest articulation of TNE goals includes the Labour government’s new strategy for national renewal by ‘turbocharging education’ as an engine for economic growth, with a target of £40 billion in education exports by 2030. This decision reflects increasing political pressure to cut net migration by reducing overseas student recruitment. Recent policy recommendations have radically argued that universities should be ‘selling education, not immigration’, with growing concerns that student visas are being used as a backdoor route into the UK labour market. Against broader anxieties around immigration in which international students are repositioned as migration liabilities, TNE offers a politically viable solution by exporting education in favour of substituting inward student mobility. As universities’ budgets shrink due to ongoing visa restrictions for international students, TNE engagements are expected to further increase (Hartmann and Lee, 2026).

According to the latest data, the number of students studying entirely overseas through UK TNE increased by 8% in 2024/25, and has risen by 37% since 2020/21. TNE student numbers are now close to the number of international students studying in the UK, with approximately one in six students in UK HE being educated across overseas campuses. Yet, despite this rapid growth, there is a lack of public data on student experiences at TNE. While aggregate data records the number of students enrolled in TNE programmes and level of education, there is limited publicly available information on student progression, degree outcome and labour market prospects. The experiences of students and educators involved in these programmes often tend to remain marginal within UK policy debates.

As higher education increasingly operates through a ‘big business’ model, institutional priorities have rapidly shifted towards generating revenue and maintaining competitiveness. In doing so,commitments to uphold student welfare, equality, and meaningful international collaboration are often sidelined in favour of positional advantage. Therefore, the expansion of TNE under growing market competition raises further pressing questions about equity and power within global HE systems.

Towards a decolonial approach to TNE

Most of the latest policy and institutional analyses of TNE tend to adopt an instrumentalist perspective focusing on business indicators, such as risk assessment, return on investment, international branding and reputation, quality assurance and transnational management strategies. As a result, TNE is mainly understood through frameworks of foreign investment and transnational service delivery further entrenching the logic of the market that frames education as a tradable commodity rather than a global public good (Lauren Clarke, 2021). While these considerations are important for universities operating in a competitive global environment, they risk overshadowing broader questions about equity, inclusion and the social purposes of higher education.

Adopting a decolonial approach to TNE can help address questions around embedding Western systems and structures of education in the Global South. Debates around the coloniality of TNE are not entirely new. Some scholars have drawn parallels between contemporary TNE arrangements and colonial models of education between the 16th and the 19th centuries. Colonial education systems were often characterised by limited access for the local population, a lack of relevance to local realities, the marginalisation of indigenous knowledge systems, the exclusive use of English as the primary medium of instruction, institutional authority with control originating from colonial centres and limited curricula featuring vocational degrees (Teferra and Altbach, 2004). TNE arrangements have been articulated as operating through a similar binary model in which a ‘core’ of sending institutions from the West sets the agenda for a marginalised ‘periphery’ of receiving partners, perpetuating historical legacies of colonialism (Caruana and Montgomery, 2015).

Against this background, there are growing calls for more introspective approaches to TNE that challenge post-colonial structures of dependence and compliance, while remaining attentive to the risk that transnational partnerships may reproduce these hierarchies through networks of alliance with local elites in host countries. Ravindra Sidhu advocates an ‘engaged pedagogy’ and an ‘ethics of care’ in the design and governance of TNE partnerships, emphasising the need to recognise the histories, aspirations and agency of local communities involved in these programmes.

Drawing insights from postcolonial and decolonial scholarship that emphasise justice, inclusion and agency will enable TNE strategies to better examine their implications on student success, outcomes and experiences as well as their wider impact on local communities and higher education systems in host countries. At the same time, greater attention to the national and cultural contexts in which TNE operates, particularly where differing political and institutional norms raise ethical challenges around academic freedom, governance and accountability, can support more informed institutional decision-making and partnerships. These perspectives will ensure that the expansion of TNE is not guided by short-term commercial imperatives but by broader commitments to equity and responsible global engagement, avoiding polarised strategic approaches (Sanderson, 2023).

Nilakshi Das has recently completed her PhD in History of Science. Her PhD was funded by the ESRC and jointly undertaken at the University of Leicester and the University of Warwick. Nilakshi holds an MSc in Education from the University of Oxford and an MA in Sociology from the University of Manchester, funded by a Commonwealth Scholarship. She is a Fellow of the Institute for Historical Research.


by 2 Comments

Studying abroad at home: why Korean students are choosing US branch campuses in Korea

by Kyuseok Kim

In South Korea, education has long been the most powerful route to social mobility and prestige, but a recent study shows how that pursuit is changing. Published in the Asia Pacific Education Review (2025), one of the newest article in transnational education (TNE) research investigates why Korean students are now choosing to study at US branch campuses located inside their own country rather than traveling abroad. Focusing on N University, a US-affiliated institution within the Incheon Global Campus, the study explores how students balance ambition, constraint, and identity in one of the world’s most competitive education systems.

Korea’s higher education landscape is characterised by rigid hierarchies in which the name of a university often outweighs individual academic or professional ability. Admission to elite institutions such as Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei University is still viewed as a ticket to success. At the same time, US degrees continue to hold exceptional symbolic power, representing international competence, social status, and career advantage. Yet, for many families, studying abroad is prohibitively expensive, while competition for domestic university places remains intense. The result is that a growing number of students are enrolling in American branch campuses at home, institutions that promise the prestige of a US education without the cost and distance of overseas study.

To explain this trend, the researchers propose a Trilateral Push–Pull Model. Traditional models of student mobility describe decision-making as a process between two countries or schools: one that pushes students out and another that pulls them in. However, international branch campuses (IBCs) add a third dimension. Korean universities push students away through limited access and rigid hierarchies. US universities attract them with prestige and global capital but are often out of reach financially and logistically. The IBC exists between these poles, offering an American degree and English-language instruction within Korea’s borders. This framework captures how students navigate overlapping pressures from domestic and global systems.

Drawing on interviews with 21 Korean students, the study reveals several interconnected findings. Many participants viewed the IBC as a second choice, not their first preference but a realistic and strategic option when other routes were blocked. They were attracted by the prestige of American degree, USstyle curriculum (in English), smaller classes, and opportunities for studying at the home campus abroad. At the same time, they expressed anxiety about the ambiguous status of their institution. Several students described N University as “in between”, uncertain whether it was truly American or fully Korean. This ambiguity, they said, made it difficult to explain their school to relatives, peers, or teachers, who were unfamiliar with the branch campus model. In a culture where school reputation carries great weight, such uncertainty caused unease even when students were satisfied with their learning experience.

The study also underscores the continuing role of family influence and educational aspiration. Many students reported growing up in households where parents believed education was the only reliable path to success and were willing to make sacrifices for English proficiency and global exposure. For these families, IBCs offered a middle ground: a way to obtain a foreign education without leaving home or paying international tuition. Students who attended Korean secondary schools typically saw the IBC as an alternative after failing to gain admission to top domestic universities. Those with international or bilingual school backgrounds viewed it as a substitute for studying abroad, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic made overseas education less appealing or feasible.

In both groups, the IBC served as a strategic compromise. It allowed students to maintain a sense of global ambition while avoiding the financial, emotional, and logistical risks of full international mobility. It also provided a form of what sociologist Jongyoung Kim calls global cultural capital: the symbolic value and recognition that come with foreign credentials. By earning an American degree at home, students could claim global status without physically migrating. This pattern illustrates how globalisation in higher education is increasingly taking place within national borders.

Beyond individual motivations, the study connects these choices to larger demographic and policy challenges. Korea’s declining college-age population and government-imposed tuition freezes have created fierce competition among universities for a shrinking pool of students. In this environment, IBCs serve dual roles: they act as pressure valves that absorb unmet domestic demand and as prestige bridges that connect local students to the symbolic power of American education. However, their long-term sustainability remains uncertain. Many IBCs struggle with limited public visibility, uneven recognition, and questions about academic legitimacy. Unless they establish a clearer institutional identity and stronger integration within the local higher education system, they risk being viewed as peripheral rather than prestigious.

The research also broadens theoretical understanding of international education. By incorporating the IBC as a third actor in the push–pull framework, the study challenges the assumption that global learning always requires cross-border mobility. It also refines the concept of global cultural capital, showing that students can now accumulate globally valued credentials and symbolic advantage through domestic avenues. In countries like South Korea, where education is deeply tied to social status, this shift represents an important transformation. The global and the local are no longer opposites but increasingly intertwined within the same institutional spaces.

In conclusion, Korean students’ choices to enroll in US branch campuses reveal a strategic negotiation between aspiration and limitation. These institutions appeal not to those lacking ambition but to those who seek to reconcile global goals with financial and social realities. They reflect a world in which higher education is simultaneously global and local, mobile and immobile. For IBCs to thrive, they must move beyond copying Western models and instead cultivate programs that are meaningful in their local contexts while maintaining international quality.

This article summarizes the research findings from ‘Choosing a U.S. Branch Campus in Korea: A Case Study of Korean Students’ Decision-Making through the Trilateral Push–Pull Model’ by Kyuseok Kim, Hyunju Lee, and Kiyong Byun, published in the Asia Pacific Education Review (2025).

Kyuseok Kim is a PhD candidate at Korea University and a Centre Director of IES Seoul.