TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012389/01238900.072

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.6 KB | 71 lines

                                                                                EDUCATION, Page 57

Japan's Search for U.S. Colleges


East meets West as Tokyo goes campus shopping


    They own Los Angeles' Arco Plaza. In New York City they have
scooped up the Exxon Building, the Algonquin Hotel and the
vaultlike home of Tiffany & Co. They are beating the U.S. at
everything from VCRs to semiconductors. And now they are trying
to buy U.S. colleges.

    In recent months Japanese businessmen and educators have
quietly offered to bail out several financially strapped schools
in return for control of their governing boards. The purpose:
to expand study-abroad opportunities for Japanese university
students. "The American higher-education system is the best in
the world," says Julia Ericksen, vice provost of Philadelphia's
Temple University. "The Japanese recognize that."

    So far, there have been no outright takers, but a few
colleges have negotiated deals that stop short of selling their
independence. This spring Warner Pacific College, a small
(enrollment: 400) church-affiliated school in Portland, Ore., is
expected to approve the sale of 49% of its physical plant to
Amvic International, a Japanese company that operates
English-language schools in Japan. The $6 million price tag
includes an agreement to lease the facilities to the college
for 30 years and to make the firm's president a regent of the
school. The transaction benefits both parties: Amvic's direct
link with the U.S. college gives it a valuable marketing tool
back home, and Warner Pacific is relieved of its crippling debt.

    Another church-affiliated institution, Phillips University
in Enid, Okla. (enrollment: 960), was approached last spring by
Kyoto Institute of Technology, which offered $24 million for
the entire school. Phillips' president, Robert Peck, refused.
"Colleges are not bought and sold," he says. "We're not Quaker
Oats." But he was under intense pressure to accept the offer
from Enid's town fathers, who in March 1988 paid $14.3 million
to keep the campus afloat, and now charge the university rent.
As a compromise, Peck let Kyoto underwrite a summer program for
up to 50 Japanese students.

    While the Japanese continue to seek academic footholds in
the U.S., a number of stateside universities are bringing
American-style education to Japan. In 1982 Temple University
became the first U.S. school to establish a branch campus in
Japan. In a new nine-story Tokyo building financed by a
separate Japanese board, some 1,600 Japanese students attend
classes taught in English by Temple professors. Last fall
Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business followed suit with
Japan's first-ever English-language M.B.A. program. More than
40 other institutions, including Texas A & M and M.I.T., are
negotiating similar deals. "The Japanese lack preparedness for
globalization," says Chikara Higashi, president of Temple
University Japan. "These institutions are an ideal means for
them to overcome the language barrier and other obstacles."

    Allowing Japan to buy into U.S. schools worries some
American educators, who fear this would be the ultimate
technology transfer. But the deals also provide vital links to
Japanese business, a chance for American students and faculty to
be exposed to that country's culture, and, not incidentally, a
source of revenue for U.S. institutions. "I see it as an
opportunity," says George Smith, assistant to the president at
Warner Pacific. "There is no question that higher education
will be more international in the future."