The Mutual Influence Between Economic Globalization and Internationalization of Higher Education

Abstract

The internationalization of higher education has emerged as one of the major research areas in the current era of economic globalization. However, there are still some unified explanations about the relationship between the two. This paper will explain the relationship between economic globalization and the internationalization of higher education, analyzing a part of the history of economic globalization as well as some literature on higher education internationalization. The research found that higher education internationalization and globalization of the economy are mutually reinforcing, that is, the internationalization of higher education may be able to promote further globalization, while economic globalization can facilitate higher education's internationalization to grow more quickly. However, there are still some problems and obstacles in the mutual promotion of the two, such as anti-globalization, the single way of internationalization of higher education, and few returns. This paper then gives suggestions such as taking education as an important strategy to promote the economy, expanding ways of developing internationalization of higher education, and providing more opportunities to the returned students to these problems at the end that might smoothen the mutual promotion of the two.