Internationalization of the German Higher Education System New Player in the Market

Abstract

Rapid social, financial and political developments in the last three decades have caused some challenges for the future of Higher Education Institutions. Globalization or internationalization is one of the most important challenges in Higher Education Markets in the last two decades. Progressively, in 1996, German legislators put internalization at the center of their reforms. The purpose of this study is to examine the results of these reforms for German Higher Education Institutions in regards to their globalization strategies such as increasing diversity of the students, improving international competitiveness of the German Higher Education Institutions, taking an active role in international EU Projects, conducting cooperation with important international higher education institutions and increasing the brain-drain to German Higher Education Institutions. A qualitative research design was used to study this problem. A multiple unit case study was carried out with semi-structured interviews with 20 high level administrators of the German Higher Education Institutions in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The results show that the strategies have had positive results and there is a high interest in higher education studies in Germany today. Despite demographic change in Germany, the student numbers at German Higher Education Institutions are increasing and there is a huge demand from other countries, which have increased the number of private universities in Germany in the last two decades. International competition will be seen as a challenge in the long-term and international cooperation is the strategy to solve this challenge. In the short-term, the number of English Programs and diversity are both seen as some ongoing challenges for the German Higher Education Institutions

Keywords

• internationalization
• german higher education system
• higher education and higher education institution