As the U.S. tightens visa restrictions for international students and slashes research funding—threatening its status as a global innovation powerhouse —it’s tempting to think American universities can simply go offshore to find new students or new funding. But the reality is far more complicated, particularly if the strategy is an international branch campus (IBC).
IBCs represent a paradox within global higher education, with some universities fully embracing the strategy and others outright rejecting the concept. Critics have dismissed IBCs as hollow replicas of their home institutions. Yet research shows that many have developed robust academic programs and even extensive research capacities. And, like the rest of the postsecondary universe, IBCs span a wide spectrum in terms of quality, purpose and impact.
The United States has led the world in establishing IBCs. The movement surged in the 2000s, a period of “gold rush”–like expansion driven by the pursuit of new revenue, visibility and rankings, but slowed dramatically over the past decade as political scrutiny and geopolitical tensions grew. In fact, until last year, we’d seen almost no IBCs of U.S. universities created since 2019.
Shifting policies and global dynamics are reigniting interest (and debate). Political concern contributed to the closure of Texas A&M University’s “profitable” branch in Qatar and heightened scrutiny of U.S. branches in China. Federal limits on international engagement and student visa delays and travel restrictions are causing some universities to once again look outward. Illinois Institute of Technology’s planned branch in India, Texas State University’s new campus in Mexico, and the University of New Haven’s forthcoming site in Saudi Arabia suggest momentum. Yet, as institutions turn toward IBCs as a hedge against domestic uncertainty, the path forward remains fraught with its own uncertainty.
Over 15 years studying international branch campuses (IBCs) through the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT), we’ve tracked the rise, fall and reinvention of IBCs on (nearly) every continent—Antarctica doesn’t have one yet. From governance breakdowns and cultural clashes to accountability gaps and student mobility shifts, we’ve learned that launching a campus abroad requires far more than institutional desire.
If your institution is considering joining this wave, here are six things you should know before you plant a flag abroad.
1. You’re Launching a Start-Up, Not a Clone
Opening an IBC is more akin to launching a start-up than expanding a franchise. Your institution needs to be ready to act like an international entrepreneur, taking on associated risks—otherwise, it’s not ready to run a campus abroad.
A report on successful IBCs that we coauthored found they required profoundly different leadership strategies than what you use on your mature campus back home. Building an IBC is not just duplicating your brand; it’s creating a new entity in a foreign regulatory, cultural and economic environment.
Take the case of Michigan State University’s now-closed Dubai campus or the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s closed campus in Singapore. These weren’t failures of vision but of execution. There was misalignment between institutional ambition, financial resources and operational capacity.
From hiring faculty to navigating construction delays or managing local political expectations to balancing dual accreditation systems, successful campuses tended to emerge from institutions that approached their IBCs as strategically distinct ventures—not mere clones of the home campus.
2. Local Alignment Isn’t Optional—It’s Everything
The data is clear: IBCs with strong host-country alignment, including government support, regulatory clarity and local partnerships, are far more likely to survive. Several Gulf-based campuses (like New York University in Abu Dhabi or Cornell University’s medical school in Qatar) succeeded because they were codeveloped with local governments and embedded in national strategies for higher education and economic growth. Others closed, like George Mason University’s Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) campus after disagreements with local officials over enrollment and revenue expectations. As we lay out in a recent article, lack of alignment is one of the greatest risks in these endeavors.
Building strong connections and communications is vital. IBCs established with a purely export mindset struggle to gain traction, enroll students or weather local shifting political winds. IBCs don’t start with the good will and reputation developed over decades like you have at home. Work is needed to build it with new partners. At the same time, your longstanding stakeholders at home need to be kept on board. Nevertheless, abrupt ends happen, such as with the National University of Singapore ending its partnership with Yale University or, as previously mentioned, the Texas A&M Board of Regents pulling the plug on the campus in Qatar.
3. Your “International” Students May Never Leave Their Country
IBCs increasingly serve place-bound learners seeking international credentials close to home. Our research shows that the majority of IBC students are either from the host country or region, a finding with implications for recruitment, student support and how institutions define mission and measure global impact.
Most models of international education are built around mobility—students crossing borders to pursue degrees abroad. But IBCs flip that paradigm: The institution crosses borders.
As we’ve explored in previous work, this shift complicates the definition of “international student.” For example, how do you classify a Korean student enrolled at a U.S. branch campus such as SUNY Korea, and who is being taught in English and earning an American degree? How about a Chinese student who does the same thing? Or a U.S. student who pursues an IBC degree at that same SUNY Korea branch campus? Distinguishing between domestic or international gets complicated fast.
Understanding this shift is essential for institutions considering a branch campus, not only to reach the right students, but to design a truly global learning experience that reflects their realities.
4. Your Governance Model May Not Survive the Flight
One of our key findings is that governance misalignment is a top reason IBCs flounder. Who oversees hiring? Curriculum? Budget? How is the decision made to open, and who decides when to close?
Governance challenges are underappreciated risks of IBCs. Recent work highlights how IBCs operate within multi-sovereign governance structures, with accountability to home regulators, host governments, multiple quality assurance agencies, local boards and internal university systems. These overlapping authorities often have different priorities, leading to conflicting mandates.
Consider the issue of academic freedom. How does an institution protect academic freedom abroad given that host countries’ sensitivities and restrictions need to be managed? Home campus structures may not be well-suited to the task, and completely distinct policies would push aside coherent institutional mission. What governance structures allow your university to thread the needle? Institutions must define how decisions are made, who is accountable, and how the IBC integrates into broader institutional planning right from the start, before a crisis.
5. Accountability Systems Don’t Travel
Traditional quality assurance systems are built on national sovereignty. But IBCs occupy a gray space: Their degrees are awarded in the name of the home university, their students are often local to the branch campus and their operations are subject to foreign regulators. This creates major accountability tensions. A campus may be accredited in the U.S. but fall short of host-country standards—or vice versa.
In our work on cross-border accountability, we argue for more nuanced models, acknowledging dual jurisdiction and adaptive frameworks rather than simply exporting home-country norms. IBCs require “fit-for-purpose” quality-assurance systems—ones that are context-specific and created in dialogue with host-country partners. Your U.S. accreditation may not serve as a global stamp of approval and won’t absolve you of meeting local quality criteria.
Too many IBCs have stumbled by assuming that U.S. accreditation equals global legitimacy, where really it is just one link in the value proposition.
6. It Can Work—But Only with Commitment, Capacity and Collaboration
Despite challenges and several closures, many IBCs have also repeatedly proven their worth. But this requires long-term institutional commitment, sustained investment, and a collaborative approach that aligns academic quality, local relevance and strategic vision.
Consider Georgia Tech-Europe, established in 1990. Beginning as a small graduate engineering program in Metz, France, it has become a globally integrated component of Georgia Tech’s research and teaching mission as well as home to an engineering lab funded by CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research). In fact, our research has shown that many IBCs have benefited from local research funding and successfully expanded universities’ international research collaborations. Success lies in deep faculty engagement, integration into European research networks, and consistency in institutional support over more than three decades.
Another, Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ), established in 1982 and officially recognized by Japan’s Ministry of Education in 2005, is often highlighted as one of the most established American branch campuses abroad. TUJ offers U.S. degree programs taught in English and enrolls a highly international student body. It provides a full liberal arts and professional education experience. The campus has also become a hub for intellectual exchange in the region through its Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, which regularly convenes global experts for lectures and symposia. With its strong institutional integration over time and diverse academic offerings, TUJ stands as a significant model of global engagement in higher education.
Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)—Nanjing Center offers another compelling example. Established in 1986 as a partnership with Nanjing University, one of the earliest U.S.–China higher education joint ventures, it has become a globally recognized hub for graduate education in international relations. The model is distinguished by its bilingual curriculum, shared governance with Johns Hopkins and Nanjing Universities, and a focus on fostering cross-cultural scholarship and policy engagement. Its success rests on decades of sustained collaboration, careful navigation of regulatory environments, and the cultivation of trust across institutional and cultural boundaries.
In these cases, and others like them, success was neither fast nor guaranteed. It required:
- Multi-year institutional buy-in beyond the presidency or provost’s office
- Faculty champions who shaped curriculum and governance with integrity
- Strong on-site leadership with operational autonomy and deep cross-cultural fluency
- Local partnerships with government, industry and communities to create shared value
- Financial models that prioritized mission and quality over short-term revenue generation
- Strategical meeting of a need that was not already being met by the host country—offering added value
IBCs can be laboratories for innovation, platforms for diplomacy and engines for capacity building. But that’s only if institutions are ready to treat them as deeply collaborative, institution-defining commitments—not branding exercises.
Conclusion
U.S. universities revisiting the idea of international branch campuses face a more consequential question than ever—not just where to go, but why? For as long as IBCs have existed, the tension between mission and money has shaped their success or failure. Getting the motivation right is critical in today’s volatile political climate, marked by rising restrictions on international engagement, shrinking research funding and growing skepticism of globalization.
IBCs conceived as a short-term financial fix or branding play will almost certainly falter. But when grounded in purpose, mutual learning, authentic partnerships and shared commitment to expanding access and knowledge, an IBC can be a vital part of a university’s long-term strategy and bridge an increasingly fractured world.
More than simply hedging against political uncertainty, opening an IBC requires defining what sort of institution and what kind of global actor a university aspires to be.