Director: Daniel C. Levy

Stanford to Open Branch Campus in Peking University

PROPHE Summary (by Yingying Xu):
Stanford will open a branch campus in Beijing, at Peking University. It will be the 9th overseas campus of Stanford. The courses of this branch campus will be taught by noted professors from both Stanford and Peking University. All courses will be in English. The branch campus will start with 30-40 Stanford students each year going to Peking University to study for a semester. After the campus operates for some time, it will enroll Chinese students. At that time, Stanford and Peking University will mutually approve credits from each other. Chinese students will then be able to study at one of the world's leading foreign universities and get their credits in China.

For the full story see http://pkunews.pku.edu.cn/newsshow.php?id=17637 at Peking University website.

PROPHE Observation (by Daniel C. Levy):
The opening of branch campuses is becoming more common internationally. Neither the university opening a branch nor any receiving institution need be private. Peking University, China's most famous university is public. But the institutions can be private, as Stanford is. Moreover, some motivations for branch campuses fit trends linked to private higher education growth and higher education privatization overall, such as more emphasis on revenues and markets both within and across borders. The Stanford-Peking linkage stands out for involving the top academic rungs of research universities. Often branch arrangements involve academically more modest institutions, particularly on the host end.