Book Reviews / Comptes rendus 106 Gürüz, Kemal (2008). Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Pages: 300. Price: $75.00 USD (hardcover). Reviewed by Nancy Bepple, Co-op Coordinator, Career Education Department, Thompson Rivers University. Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy provides an overview of various forces shaping higher education, especially with regard to international student mobility. While grounded in the present, the author goes as far back as 569 BCE to show how, while student mobility has always been a component of higher education, international students’ movements are now intertwined with the global knowledge economy. The author uses statistics, policy, and history to describe not only the current state, but the path that leads to the future. The book is divided into six chapters, each of which can stand on its own, but are in fact different components of a whole. Chapter 1 begins with a brief description of globalization, and goes on to describe how the shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy in the second half of the twentieth century went hand in hand with the ability to produce science and technology-based knowledge through higher education. In this chapter, the focus is on research and development, along with the proportion of innovation produced by universities. As with the remainder of the book, the extensive statistics are presented extremely elegantly, making what could have been dry reading easy and engaging to follow. Chapter 2 focuses on the period between 1860 and the present day, and discusses the explosive growth of student enrolments, first in Europe and the United States, and then expanding globally. From a starting point of 0.5 to 1 percent in the 1860s, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) has grown steadily, with a worldwide average in 2006 of 24 percent, with a high of 70 percent in North America and Europe, and a low of 5 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa. The chapter shows that while educational opportunities are expanding everywhere, there is a widening gap of educational enrolment between developed and developing countries. This chapter also discusses how, in developed countries, more and more “non-traditional” students— defined as older, part time, community, and minority students—are making up a larger part of the domestic student body. One minor flaw in the chapter is the absence of a definition of GER, which made the text less accessible. While the readership might be expected to know what this is, it was one of the few technical terms used in the book that was not defined. Chapter 3 focuses on how market forces have shaped higher education, especially from the 1980s to the present day. The chapter discusses how different countries have taken various approaches to financing higher education, including public funds, household contributions, and other private sources. The second aim of the chapter is to describe how changes in governance of higher education institutions allowed new funding models to evolve. With the increase in university autonomy came less public funding. As a result, there has been an increasing reliance on tuition fees, which in turn motivated many institutions to turn to international students as a source of revenue. Disappointingly, the economic model of Milton Friedman, the impetus for the changes to a market-based model, rated only a passing mention: “Friedmanite approach to macro-economic policy formulation” (p. 35). While fairly thorough in CJHE / RCES Volume 40, No. 3, 2010 Book Reviews / Comptes rendus 107 summarizing the tuition fee structures and changes to governance models in different countries, the author avoids comparing the relative advantages and disadvantages of the various countries’ approaches, or offering up any criticism of Friedman’s economic policies that lead to higher education moving from the government-regulated, public sector to a more loosely regulated “quasi-market.” Chapter 4 maps out that non-profit universities and colleges are no longer the only providers of higher education: new providers include for-profit universities, consortiums, and franchises. As well, there is a discussion of the impact of the Internet on distance education. My main criticism of this chapter is that while Gürüz is quite critical of “nonrecognized” higher education institutions (“Most are low quality and seek accreditation from bodies that sell a label,” p. 79), he provides no data to back up this claim. It is as if, despite pointing to the flood of change happening, Gürüz does not want to give up the idea of the university as the only legitimate provider of higher education. Chapter 5 discusses higher education in terms of globalization and internationalization. The chapter begins with a summary of higher education from 569 BCE until the development of modern universities up to 1950. While this may seem irrelevant to the present context, the historical overview reinforces the continual benefits that countries, institutions and individuals have derived because of the mobility of students and academics. The chapter then goes on to define globalization and internationalization from an educational perspective, relying heavily on the work of Jane Knight. The third purpose of the chapter is to summarize the effects on higher education of policy initiatives, such as the Bologna Declaration, and the General Agreement on Trade in Services. It is interesting to note that endeavours for academic equivalency and quality assurance, which have become very important with ever-increasing globalization and internationalization of education, are not a new concern: universities in medieval Europe had a common teaching language and curriculum. Chapter 6 looks at international student mobility as inflows and outflows, with each major host country and country of origin discussed in turn. While heavy with statistics and charts, the chapter does succeed in painting a picture of where students are coming from, where they are going, and, to a lesser extent, why. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how international student mobility is affecting immigration patterns in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the, United Kingdom and Western Europe. An overall critique of the book is the lack of discussion of gender, and female international students specifically. Aside from one footnote, the only mention of female students, and then only briefly, is in Chapter 2, as a percent of domestic GER. There is no discussion of the proportion of international students who are female, their countries of origin, or the academic programs they are taking. A second critique is how little discussion there is on the negative effects of international student mobility within the context of a knowledge economy. The author does raise concerns that economic prospects for many African countries, whose educational attainments lag far behind other countries, are “bleak” (p. 30). However, there is no discussion of the potential negative consequences of, for instance, for-profit activities by public and nonprofit institutions or the increase in family contribution to the cost of higher education. CJHE / RCES Volume 40, No. 3, 2010 Book Reviews / Comptes rendus 108 Finally, readers interested in the Canadian context may be left wanting. In comparison to the author’s discussion of United States, major European countries, China, Japan, India, and Australia, there are gaps in the data presented. Having said this, using the book’s index, one can piece together an overview of Canada’s role in international student mobility. Despite these criticisms, the book provides a good resource for readers interested in global policies and economic forces contributing to international student mobility. As a bonus, the bibliography provides a good resource for further readings in the fields of internationalization of education, as well as sources of statistics on international student mobility and higher education. CJHE / RCES Volume 40, No. 3, 2010