Establishing affiliated elementary and secondary schools is not a new practice for universities, but in a twist on that model -- and a sign of growing budget pressures and international recruiting imperatives -- a handful of institutions have moved to host international high schools on their campuses.
The University of Southern Maine, in Portland, is recruiting its first class for the International Academy, an independent boarding school for grades 11 and 12 in which students from overseas will take two full years of USM classes, earning up to 60 university credits while also receiving a high school diploma.
In a different model taking hold in British Columbia, two universities in the Canadian province have entered into partnerships with a Chinese company to operate high schools on their campuses, and a third is exploring a similar partnership with a different company.
Administrators at various institutions speak of benefits like revenue generation, new international recruitment pathways and increased cultural diversity on their campuses, while critics question why their universities want to get into the business of running -- or in the case of the Canadian institutions, hosting -- international high schools. In British Columbia, student and faculty associations have raised concerns about the leasing of public university space to for-profit educational companies.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/16/some-universities-move-open-international-high-schools-their-campuses