 Welcome to Global Connections, I'm your host Carlos Juarez and today we have a fascinating show we're going to be looking at issues related to higher education but from a very comparative global perspective I'm joined today by a guest Dr. Jorge Arenacis from the University of the Americas in Cholula Puebla in Mexico and a specialist in international education for the public policy issues related to higher education and a range of things we're going to see but more to the point we're going to try to understand higher education really from a policy oriented perspective a comparative perspective how it's similar in the U.S. to other places or different and since we're here in Mexico at the moment we're going to look at an overview of this country but first let me welcome our guest Jorge thank you for joining us here on Global Connections it's great to have you here thank you for inviting me special to you and by way of some background you know we uh I want to just alert our host you're a specialist in areas of international higher education uh that is higher education from a comparative perspective in your background and tell us a little bit about it I believe you have uh grounded in sort of sociology but then you went on to do your PhD studies at the State University of New York in Albany uh tell us a little bit about just some of your formation and your background of uh of this area okay I can tell you that my basic background was in sociology the area of study sociology and later I was very interested in in higher education and some issue related to uh police analysis yes and comparative higher education I completed my PhD in Suri Albany in the department of educational administration on police studies yeah excellent and uh you know again when we think of higher education we often you know we think maybe of institutions we think of programs and those are parts of it but of course ultimately higher education is at a very important public policy it's it's a function of on one hand government both fostering and promoting and regulating uh and of course we'll get into some differences because you have a very important role for the state for government uh particularly supporting public institutions but also another uh contrast because we have a lot of private universities in different parts of the world that are very important they either they fill a void or they you know provide sort of an alternative uh and there's some variation there that I wanted to talk about maybe by way of getting us started uh you know give us a quick snapshot uh you've had research uh over the years uh in different areas of higher education particularly comparative but uh tell us maybe very briefly a quick overview of the higher education system uh maybe broadly in the world you know you you're familiar with the United States having studied there for your PhD uh you went to a public institution the state University of New York uh and like uh you I was a graduate myself of UCLA in California these are large public institutions supported by the state uh they have a certain mission a certain focus they're different uh on some level from maybe some of the private institutions but then maybe tell us a little bit about how maybe a country like Mexico which is uh you know an important neighbor to the south uh it also has a higher education system that reflects uh government policy trends just a couple of background overview concepts uh tell us a little bit about helping us frame this issue of higher education as a public policy okay one of the most important issues that uh that I consider very important for Mexico is the problem of funding higher education so the funding where the funding comes from yes and in the case of the United States you have an excellent system of combination of public and private resources and that's not the and that's not the the fact in Mexico and most of the higher education is public funding and you have very important institutions in private education but they are privately funded you know yes we don't have that kind of rich combination of public and private resources and that's a weakness of our country yes and that's something that uh for this very interesting uh talking about the comparative perspective of Mexico and the United States you have excellent uh private funding you know through nations through philanthropy yeah I think I think in Mexico it's totally different absolutely I think the area of philanthropy for the United States is quite important whether it's a public or private institution they often uh you know public ones uh or maybe let's think of it differently uh we have a wide range of different types of institutions public and private is one division but obviously we have some that are focused more on teaching some on research uh but maybe I want to get back to this idea that you mentioned philanthropy in the United States is a long tradition of you know donations whether it's from wealthy donors or individuals alumni and most universities are constantly working in this battle of like endowments you know increasing the money which allows them to pay for many things you know scholarships research you know facilities and resources and for Mexico perhaps uh not quite a tradition of philanthropy so heavier dependence on the state uh however there are also some private institutions that obviously must depend more on on the fees and the payment and of course Mexico itself has a very uh let's say uh you know you could say almost an elite society where those who go to university tend to be a pretty small percentage relative to maybe you know countries like the US or in parts of Europe where it's a bit broader um I wonder if you might tell us from your perspective what other differences between you know Mexico and the US in terms of higher education you talk about the financing and funding uh what else did you speak to uh basic model issue very related to this of the funding the excellent linkage between the enterprises and universities in the United States you have an excellent uh combinations of enterprises and universities you know and there are projects of uh technology and science and they have an excellent connection yeah and private industry for example corporations that have connections either you know supporting programs or being a pipeline to the workforce those are of course things that build up over time and the point in Mexico was that during some decades there was definitely there were some kind of uh how can I tell you gaps between the university and enterprises you know they didn't connect in the appropriate way so that's a problem in Mexico during the last years Mexico has tried to connect this to uh before and here I mean maybe to think of it in a different way universities after all are the basically those that provide knowledge and and prepare those who go into the workforce and so if you have a society and economy that needs a certain type of skills and competencies um you need to have a connection you need to understand from those who are the employers whether they be private business or even non-profit NGOs or even government there has to be some dialogue some connection to understand those needs right and mostly when we talk about the knowledge society yes you need a very tight connection in universities and enterprise and technology yes and that's something that it happens in Mexico but in the very slow yes and maybe in small pockets only yes and again you describe this knowledge society and that's the reality now of the early 21st century we live in an age of you know global interdependence and even though there are you know crises and pushback against that the reality is that we have such you know rapidly changing labor markets and we have needs that you know constant in terms of technology and knowledge so universities play a very critical role in helping prepare those um and you know one of the disconnects is this lack of either a dialogue or a connection between those who are the suppliers the universities and those who actually go on you know because people are studying but at some point they're going to move on and get into the workforce they need to have some connection there I wonder you know from a comparative perspective I have you could you refer to maybe any examples in other places where you mentioned the US of course it makes it but other places in Europe or other parts of the world where there's maybe examples of successful uh I don't know uh connection or providing you know the right uh I don't know the right linkage to to to the workforce I guess it's it's something very difficult to say that it's not fine in Mexico because you know it's chronic as a history there are many factors that maybe are in play when you are talking about connection but in the case of you you have many countries in Netherlands countries England friends so you have a very broad very broad cases of countries that try to my university and industry yeah yeah more of a kind of partnership and actually when I think about it you know public institutions which are very important of course everywhere in the world and in places like Europe they are quite dominant um private institutions often are in the US have been very important you know the Harvard Yale Stanford of the world they obviously they have been very important in developing research and you know training the best and brightest but when you think about it for a moment public institutions one of the challenges they have a different mission they have a different focus they have to be maybe addressing more public uh you know I don't know public uh it needs exactly and and community needs in ways but there's another often criticism that public institutions often tend to be more bureaucratic more maybe more political and and that can sometimes lead to difficulty and change and adapting a private institution I'm going to be very general here can sometimes be more flexible adaptable and maybe have the ability to change programs to address the needs public institutions just by their very nature are going to be more bureaucratic for the demands that are placed on them uh what are what are you what can you say about some of those challenges the the bureaucratic nature of public uh the flexibility found in I mean do we see I don't know any trends in terms of public institutions trying to be more flexible and adapt to you know things that private institutions have done better well it's important to say that we cannot speak about one sector of private education you have a lot of institutions in private education you have for instance this sector of demand absorbing institutions and these kind of institutions as for are for the people you know they don't have the the conditions the quality the valuations of private institutions so in this sense when we talk in Mexico with private institutions you have to make the distinction between the elite institutions yeah as long as the demand absorbing institutions you know we talk about the private sector the elite private institutions they have good conditions for research good conditions for teaching in the case of this institution you know but uh the original most private institutions are not so good like in the United States yeah so we have to think about it because in the U.S. we often point to a handful they're not a big majority but they're a number of what we would call for-profit institutions that are really maybe you know they have less quality assurance and control and they're driven more by profit motive obviously the the most prestigious private institutions the again the elite ones tend to be not for profit although they raise tremendous money they have large endowments but their goal their focus their mission is mostly be excellent in academic areas but uh you know here in Mexico there are a lot of big number of private institutions but many of them are just very poor quality don't have a lot of oversight and this is again one of the challenges of higher education it's a pretty big business and it's difficult to regulate and control uh and you know in the U.S. as you know we have a number of uh accrediting accrediting commissions uh regional ones that basically provide that oversight similarly in a place like Mexico you have some measure but only for the more elite ones we're going to take a short break right now and when we come back I want us to maybe unravel a little bit more what are some of the challenges facing higher education now in this era of globalization independence uh but also push back against that so in a moment we'll come back we're joined here on global connections my host is Dr. Jorge Arenas a professor at the University of Americas and a specialist in higher education on a comparative international level join us as we come back after this short break. Hey Loja my name is Andrew Lening I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios I'll bring you guests I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe your co-workers safe your family safe to keep our community safe uh we want to teach you about those things in our industry that you know may be a little outside of your experience so please join me because Security Matters Aloha Aloha I'm Cynthia Sinclair and I'm Tim Apachella we're hosts here at Think Tech Hawaii a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii we provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii we're a Hawaii non-profit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going we'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now thanks so much Aloha and welcome welcome back I'm your host Carlos Juarez here on Global Connections and joined today by Jorge Arenas a professor at the University of the Americas in Cholula and a specialist in international education higher education in particular we're talking about how some of the challenges are facing many institutions of higher learning these days we live in an era of interdependence interconnectedness every university now is trying to be more global and more connected and that includes everything from student mobility students have opportunities to exchange and study in other places that's right faculty themselves obviously have opportunities for that a country like Mexico has always had a long you know steady flow of people who go do higher studies in US or in Europe and then they come back or in some cases they don't and one of the challenges are facing I think a lot of developing countries countries let's say in emerging markets is that while they need people to get trained and understand the world they also need them to come back in different times and some some of the challenges is what we might call the brain drain your president right as they will go off to college and in another country but will they come back now in the case of Mexico often they will receive funding from the government to do that and maybe sometimes requires them to come back can you maybe explain a little bit about this process of higher education opportunities for maybe an example of Mexico like yourself studying abroad but then also the requirements or the need to come back because uh while you want to train people outside you also need them to come back and work here that's true well this is a very fascinating point point because when you're talking about the training and the brain the brain the drain uh drain brain drain brain almost brain drain I gotta mix up the brain drain yes it's right because we have in Mexico many students in other countries or the problem is what you offer once they finish the studies or that's the real problem because sometimes you don't you can you cannot offer the best salaries for these people you know a Mexican government have tried to launch on public programs to be sure that these students and students in foreign universities they will come back to Mexico but that's not the case many people with with the capacities with talent they they're remaining in the in the university for this but yeah so probably Mexico is is serious because you know the salaries in universities are not so good in other countries yes so if somebody wants to be a academic researcher or professor the reality is that there are more opportunities outside of the country and that becomes a challenge because the country itself needs talented people who can help train the next generation of leaders uh and again we live in this era of greater mobility so that you're like yourself we have Mexico an excellent body government and what institution the name is conesit national I yeah national council for science and technology or something like that basically this is a government agency that funds the researchers and and study abroad and this institution is just also of the scholarship for students and and and inter compass for instance the national research system so they have tried to achieve conditions good conditions for students that come back to Mexico after graduating yeah so this but it is a challenge not enough and again on one hand you can speak of this period of globalization now these last 20 30 years where we've seen more mobility on one hand it has been more opportunities so for Mexicans and other you know foreign nationals to go to places like the u.s and study and for americans to study abroad elsewhere but as you know there the challenge is now though that mobility once you've gone to another place suddenly it opens up new opportunities for you and you know why come back so it remains a very big challenge for a serious problem of course I wonder you know maybe continue our dialogue about you know we're talking about higher education from a comparative perspective it is a government policy and it's one of the most important you know roles of government to help you know obviously provide education and train you know its society address its needs but it's also a very inherently political agenda that is a you know we may agree that it's important and it should be supported but it also has other things pushing it and I wonder maybe you could you identify what are some of the ways in which higher education either becomes politicized or captured by I don't know certain groups that might have different interests or what are some of the competing interests do you have a very uneven picture of the universities in Mexico you have an excellent excellent city public institutions like man national university one and this kind of universities and they try to remain with the excellent levels of quality excellent levels of knowledge what you have on the other hand very poor institutions in some states and the result of these institutions are not so good because as you said many of these institutions are controlled by local groups and they don't have accountability yeah but obviously very poor accountability yeah and many resources that are supposed to be for researchers or for good researchers and it might be maybe they are and I think you know this is not unique to a country like Mexico we have uh even I can tell you you actually have a wide variation we have some of the most you know prestigious institutions the MIT the you know SUNY UC system you know which is Texas at Austin Wisconsin Madison any of these big major public institutions that are among the top in the world and yet you can also find on the margins you know smaller you know public institutions that simply don't compete because those elite ones are obviously on one level they're competing with the best of the brightest etc but you know you have as well I guess what I want to say is that even in our US country we've got some variation we have some of the very best we've also got some more mediocre or less maybe less competitive but I go back to this you know public institutions have a different agenda a different purpose their mission because they are funded by the state and they're there to promote they address a lot more issues of fairness and equity and access and they have to have you know to some degree more transparency more accountability private institutions can often they don't have to you know be as open I mean some choose to but in general they have more control over their resources right in a way exactly and and the issue here for public institutions is that you have to like public university to fulfill many options yes leadership in knowledge is very important it's very important but also you have to be sure that many poor students once they finish they they get good jobs yeah so they have vocational education yeah technological education yeah so this is a big challenge for universities because you you need to have in the same place or these different functions and it's it's not easy to do that that's right now as a researcher scholar yourself and you've been studying this issue many years now you've had opportunities to both teach and research in other countries you've participated in many international conferences where you learn what's happening in other places these forums these dialogues you know the research agenda helps to sort of you know I guess it helps to disseminate information what's happening in other places success stories or challenges I wonder maybe from your vast experience in this area what have been some either anecdotes or opportunities you've had where you've learned at another place I think you you studied sometime in Argentina briefly years back you've done in Europe attending a number of places there have you come across some I don't know examples that were very surprising that were valuable to learn and in this dialogue you obviously are trying to share ideas best practices what's happening in other places can you talk a little bit about that talking about Argentina for instance yeah I think that is an excellent opportunity to compare Argentina and Mexico because we're facing similar challenges for instance Mexico now with the new president and the new policies we want to have universal access to higher education and universal access means a lot of money a lot of programs and in some the Argentina have experienced this kind of policies and they don't have a cheap resource you know they say that the quality has been very poor compared to the and so what you're describing there of course Mexico this past year has elected a populist president a left-wing president and so his goals in general are going to be you know more easy access expanding opportunities easier said than done because where does the money come from or at the expense of what but also often when you throw a lot of money at a problem if it's not carefully managed you can create different more problems exactly yeah and the biggest is the is the quality range quantity yes yes because if you have a lot of students of course you are facing the quality quality norms yes but on the other hand you have serious problems of quality you need to hire more professors to be sure that you have appropriate infrastructure yeah places for students and you need to be sure to have this quality for exchange exchange internationally change yeah and you need all these expenditures yeah these two things to do that that's right and the problem is that you can offer a higher education for students but once they finish these programs they are not enough return face the yeah are we teaching them the real skills they need I mean this is a real challenge and I go back to this idea that often criticism made of many universities is that there's different incentives because on one hand they are I don't know if you would say controlled but the you know one of the major players would be faculty who are doing their research and and obviously they have a certain set of interest administrators who have had to address certain goals and criteria then pressure if they're public institutions from the legislature the government that's funding it they want to see other results there's often a lot of competing interest and criticism that are we doing what we're supposed to or are we really producing you know future leaders one challenge I or maybe I can just take you I mean if you think 50 or 100 years ago universities were generally thought to be very very you know privileged small you know very few people came and got to opportunities today there's a view maybe a different value that university should be accessible to everybody it should be you know we all need higher training the knowledge society etc but how realistic is that because sometimes if our secondary education is not preparing them for universities and if the job market doesn't need certain types I'm reminded of in some of the european countries you often have an education system by the middle school that will divide those because not everybody is going to be as academically oriented and rather than train everybody to go to university some might be better going into technical fields vocational fields generally something like a community college in the United States you know yeah they the students in community colleges are able to complete some higher education studies vocational and this kind of jobs not related to academic issues you know and that's very important because I know that in your country community colleges are the important subsystem of higher education yeah so in Mexico we have tried to have some kind of community college inside the technological universities yeah all the problem is the the market because it's the other side of the universities you can have excellent students but if you have a poor market that is not able to solve these good students what the problem is that they will be without employment yes and that's a problem in Mexico this speaks to wherever you're doing it I mean the university education needs to be in a very holistic way it needs to bring together all the key players the employers who obviously what what are your needs and how can we connect you know the right people to the right jobs the government that needs to understand how all this works and and funding it and not be driven by short-term interest because often these investments take time to get over and then the institutions themselves because I think too often we have a lot of very bureaucratic hurdles and obstacles and again the public versus private what is the right role but I don't think there's an easy answer because some some you know some countries have greater emphasis on the public sector being primary I think of a lot of European countries that way with the US we have a strong role for private interest private sector and private institutions are very you know one important part of that as well but they do not replace the important role of public so I think in the end what we come away with is this topic of international or education higher education is complex it has many different players both public versus private but also the needs of society and how do we connect those we have to understand that universities are basically an important puzzle for you know government to have to address the needs of creating jobs filling job but also giving the right capacity to the people I try and giving the skills and knowledge that we need well thank you okay this has been a great conversation a chance to learn a little bit about different challenges and issues and as a scholar of higher education yourself again you are both training future generation of education leaders themselves and also helping countries like Mexico learn about these issues in other places because since you study it in whether it's in Europe US or other parts of Latin America it helps you bring some of that knowledge to help dialogue and improve Mexico's higher education system thank you again and I appreciate this and we'll have to continue the conversation and move on with other things for our guest thank you for joining us a brief overview of higher education from a comparative perspective and we have to think of it more than just names of universities but a very important public policy a role for government but a role for both public and private institutions and in this knowledge society that we live in universities remain an important piece of that so thank you for joining us here on global connections I'm your host Carlos Juarez and we'll look to see you here again at our next show