Speaking on the session ‘Across the uni-verse: exploring multi-university models, branch campuses and alliances‘, speakers examined the business models and price points behind new branch campuses, and offered a candid insights into setting up in India.
Panelists included Lawrence Pratchett, CEO of UniReady Global and provost of Birkbeck University of London’s new campus in Bangalore, Lisa Williams, associate vice president international at James Cook University (JCU) Singapore, and Novie Tajuddin, CEO of Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS).
- Multi‑university campuses are about scale, student experience and shared academic capita
Pratchett described a model in Bangalore where three or four universities will join Birkbeck in co‑locating and sharing infrastructure, services and elements of academic provision.
He said that when you launch a branch campus in a new market, “you don’t start with 5,000 students – you start with 150 or 200”, which can make for a thin student experience if each institution goes it alone.
On the Bangalore site, “many of the back-office functions that are needed in a branch campus overseas, which will be quite small to start with, can be much more efficient,” he noted, adding that shared sports, leisure and student activities would mean “a rich student experience… from day one”.
The model also tackles a chronic constraint in India: access to international academic staff. Birkbeck and its partners will still appoint their own faculty, but visiting staff will be encouraged to guest lecture across partner institutions so students “get that crossover of intellectual engagement across universities”.
- There are serious questions about why some providers are rushing into India
While the panel was broadly positive about high-quality TNE, there was clear discomfort about some of the motivations behind the recent surge of announcements in India.
Williams warned that some institutions appear to be using India as a quick fix for domestic financial challenges.
“There’s an incredible amount of risk,” she cautioned. “I think there may be a trend emerging where institutions are looking at setting up TNE in India as a reactive model on the back of a challenging environment in home countries… That concerns me.”
For her, any new branch campus or franchise must be based on “a long-term plan” with strategic importance measured in decades, not just filling a three‑ to five‑year budget gap. “TNE is not a quick revenue generator,” she noted. “In the first three years, at best you break even, and there’s a huge level of upfront investment.”
- Price points must reflect the real addressable market, not headline population
The panel pushed back on the assumption that India’s 1.4 billion population automatically translates into endless demand for premium‑priced foreign branch campuses.
Pratchett highlighted that despite the vast population, “only a little over 40–45 million households earn the equivalent of about AUD $100,000 a year”. That relatively narrow income band “is the real target market” for many of the higher‑priced foreign IBC offers, he indicated.
He contrasted the fees being pitched by some foreign branch campuses in India – “around 12–13 lakh” – with Birkbeck’s strategy of going “quite low… six to seven lakh”. It’s a deliberate play, he said, based on how the market may perceive value, though he acknowledged “we don’t know yet” how students will respond.
Panelists also linked pricing and value to wider socio‑economic tensions. Pratchett pointed to recent large‑scale student protests in India – formally triggered by exam controversies – but argued that “dissatisfaction amongst students is actually about the absence of employability,” with around “20% of those 40‑odd million students currently in higher education unemployed a year after graduation”.
- Local TNE: Malaysia’s plan to grow international numbers without crowding out locals
Malaysia’s long‑term goal of hosting 500,000 international students by 2035 is ambitious, but Tajuddin stressed that growth has to be carefully managed against domestic capacity and political realities.
Public universities remain primarily for Malaysians, with international enrolment typically capped at around 20%, while private institutions are expected to keep international students to no more than about half of their intake to maintain a healthy mix.
To reconcile those limits with rising demand, Tajuddin is championing what he calls “local TNE” – partnerships where public and private universities work together so that international students can be taught in private institutions while still accessing public‑university programs and brands.
That way, he argued, Malaysia can expand its international footprint “without eating up the quota for domestic students” in its highly subsidised public sector.
- Portfolio balance, employability and civic duty are now central to TNE strategy
The panelists agreed that simple headcount growth is no longer a sufficient rationale for cross-border expansion.
Williams said JCU’s international strategy is now built around a “hub-and-spoke” model and a “one JCU” mindset, where staff are expected to be campus‑agnostic and focus on student fit: “We let the student decide what they want to study, what kind of environment they want, what kind of experience they want, and then we almost triage them.”
Diversity and resilience are built into that approach. Over‑reliance on a single dominant market, she noted, is seen as a clear risk.
“A sustainable model has to consider experience, revenue stream and civic duty,” Williams argued. In Singapore, that means being able to evidence to regulators “that there’s a civic duty in giving back to Singapore and supporting Singaporean local students,” not just importing fee‑paying internationals.
On employability, Pratchett said ECA and Birkbeck intend to work “very hard on strong engagement with employers very early on”, from co‑designing curriculum to bringing employers on campus and, ultimately, “placing [students] at the end of their studies straight into employment if we can”.
