Blog 11: American Council on Education Will Expand Efforts in International Education

The American Council of Education (ACE) has announced in a new report that they plan to increase their efforts as an advocate for international education and to help colleges and universities internationalize. The report in titled "Strength Through Global Leadership and Engagement: U.S. Higher Education in the 21st Century." It recognizes that although the United States has historically been international leaders in attracting foreign students and producing research, the world is changing, so American institutions have to collaborate more with institutions abroad and find new ways of operating overseas to remain competitive. The council also wants to help colleges forge global strategies. Molly Corbett Broad, the president of ACE, says that “while different types of institutions will approach internationalization differently, there are a number of issues that most will have to contend with.” A major issue the institutions will have to deal with is understanding how these new international efforts will benefit the home campus and explaining the value to students, alumni, lawmakers, and others. Ms. Broad also said ACE expects to speak out more on international issues that affect higher education, like immigration policy and federal spending for foreign-language and area studies.

I think that this effort to increase international education is something that has been needed for a long time. All of the countries need to work together within the education department so that we can have more successful communication in the future. Colleges need to give added support to study abroad programs so students have the opportunity to be enriched with various cultures. This new effort will also benefit students at the elementary level because they will be more internationally enriched at a younger age. We can add more culture education to the curriculum so that students understand various cultures better. This will also help with discrimination and prejudice because the youth with have been exposed to people who are different from themselves.

http://chronicle.com/article/American-Council-on-Education/129668/