Dive Brief:

• Nevada's state higher education board has forged a broad partnership with a Mexican border state that could include joint degree programs, faculty and student exchanges, language courses and collaborative work on conferences.
• The memorandum of understanding between Nevada's Board of Regents and the Secretary of Education in Tamaulipas, Mexico, lasts for four years and is not binding but rather establishes a framework for collaboration between the two states' higher ed systems.
• "We have one of the most unique programs in the United States — and they are very interested in this program — which is about how things will become automated," Western Nevada College President Vincent Solis told The Nevada Independent en Español. "They want to quickly transform how they are offering their classes and that requires that all teachers in those professions switch from Spanish to English."

Dive Insight:

Broad international partnerships are a way to provide students and colleges with a global educational pathway and trade specialties between geographies and institutions.

Along with sharing educational resources, the agreement between Nevada and Tamaulipas is aimed at cultural enrichment at a time of tension over President Donald Trump's trade and border policies and rhetoric. The institutions hope the partnership can help support the need for technical skills and bilingual training on both sides of the border, according to The Nevada Independent.

The list of international partnerships by U.S. colleges is long and wide-ranging. Among them, the American Council on Education (ACE) lists the University of Buffalo's agreement with Konan University, in Japan; the University of Missouri-St. Louis's partnership with the Modern College of Business and Science, in Oman; and State University of New York's agreement with Turkey's Council of Higher Education.

More recently, New York's Clarkson University said it would offer combined bachelor's and master's degrees with two Chinese universities. The agreement allows Chinese students to spend three years on their bachelor's in China and another two years toward a bachelor's or master's at Clarkson.

In 2006, as more colleges were seeking to globalize their educational offerings, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis laid out how it planned to use partnerships to raise its international profile. In doing so, the public research institution said universities "have a distinctive role to play in illuminating, negotiating, and harnessing the power of the global networks that increasingly frame our lives."

However, geopolitics and concerns about importing ideas that conflict with U.S. colleges' values can also add tension to such agreements.

Partnerships with Chinese institutions and programs, in particular, have come under scrutiny over security and academic freedom concerns. Earlier this year, the University of California System, prompted by the U.S. State Department, warned students and faculty in China not to use online communications apps and also to take extra precaution in interacting with the country's officials. Last fall, Cornell University suspended its participation in two exchange programs with Renmin University of China over academic freedom concerns.

Moreover, several U.S. colleges have cut ties with the China-funded Confucius Institute, which provides cultural education programming on some 100 college campuses and in K-12 classrooms.

Recently, the U.S. Senate issued a 93-page report raising concerns that the institute promotes the Chinese government's agenda and does not offer sufficient academic freedom. It also noted colleges don't always disclose funds they get from the institute.