Going Further on That Walk: Examining the Internationalization of Public and Private Not-for-Profit American Higher Education
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the field of internationalization by investigating the differences in the outputs (the amount and types of activity undertaken in support of internationalization efforts) and outcomes of internationalization (results of the process of internationalization) between public and private not-for-profit American higher education institutions (HEIs) in 2011 and 2016. Using a mixed methods approach, the quantitative strand of this research uses data from the American Council on Education (ACE) 2011 and 2016 Mapping Internationalization surveys to examine through descriptive statistics the differences in the outputs of internationalization of public and private not-for-profit HEIs. Then, running several ordered logit regressions I examine among the six categories of ACE’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement (CIGE) Model for Comprehensive Internationalization, which categories exert the most influence on the perceived level of internationalization in public and private not-for-profit HEIs in 2011 and 2016. The qualitative strand of this research analyzes interviews with key campus officers from American public and private not-for-profit higher education institutions that had already participated in the ACE internationalization laboratory to find out the perceived outcomes of internationalization. The results of the quantitative strand show that there are several differences in the outputs of internationalization in 2011 and 2016 between public and private not-for-profit HEIs. The results of the qualitative strand indicate that public HEIs are more advanced in cycle of the process of internationalization than private not-for-profit HEIs. Moreover, participants reported only level one (students and other institutional stakeholders) and level two (individual higher education institution) outcomes, not mentioning level three (national level) and level four (global and supra-national) outcomes. I find that many higher education institutions treat internationalization as a temporary program that is vulnerable to the oscillations of leadership. In fact, internationalization requires a change in the mentality of the higher education institution and must be embedded in the culture to guide the paths of the institution in a globalized economy. This study has implications for policy, practice, and research.
Education, Higher education, Internationalization, Outcomes, Outputs, Private not-for-profit higher education institution, Public higher education institution
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