ABSTRACT
To many critics, the rapid growth of income-generating transnational programs looks like an unseemly gold rush threatening to undermine the public service orientation that should be paramount to higher education institutions. The approach of Western universities is often described as aggressive or predatory in developing countries, leading South Africa’s Kader Asmal (1999) to ask: “Are we entering a Darwinian nightmare, when higher education is red in tooth and claw and only the fittest survive?” Staff at transnationally active institutions, grappling with the practicalities of slippery budgets and prickly management problems, may find accounts of the riches to be gained from overseas enterprises touching. Institutions engaged in transnational education are exposed to a range of financial, legal, sovereign, reputational and physical/personal risks that often far exceed those faced in the home country, and which staff may not be well equipped to deal with. In the case of public institutions, financial strife is particularly newsworthy: “Uni’s overseas failures bleeding millions” declared the front-page headline of a major Australian newspaper in mid-2005. The article reported that “Australian universities have lost millions of taxpayer dollars in failed foreign adventures that have damaged their reputations overseas and diminished resources for students at home” (Jopson and Burke 2005: 1).
