The Dispatch
The TNE oversight gap
As universities expand globally, is ensuring the quality of cross-border degrees becoming more complex?
By Gauri Kohli
"TNE growth has created real opportunities, but quality assurance has not kept up."
"Whose rules apply when a student is sitting in a classroom in Southeast Asia... but studying for a European degree?"
"The focus must shift from one-directional regulation to collaborative, cross-border partnerships."
In brief
- As universities expand globally, TNE faces a critical oversight gap as quality assurance frameworks struggle to keep pace with rapid cross-border growth.
- Commercial pressures often compromise academic rigour, while students fall into "grey zones" regarding welfare and support when regulatory responsibilities between home and host countries remain blurred.
- To ensure sustainability, institutions must prioritize cross-border cooperation and treat TNE as a core academic mission rather than an export commodity to protect global trust.
For decades, the promise of a foreign degree earned abroad has powered the rapid rise of transnational education (TNE). British, American, Australian and other universities now deliver programmes across the world, transforming TNE into a multibillion-dollar industry.
But the systems designed to safeguard the quality of these cross-border programmes have struggled to keep pace as universities expand through branch campuses, joint ventures and online provision.
TNE quality assurance experts note that this expansion has certainly challenged the scope of existing frameworks. Shannon Stowers, Director of International Policy and Engagement at the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), says the expansion has challenged existing frameworks. This has prompted the QAA to refresh its UK TNE Quality Scheme to safeguard the reputation and sustainability of UK provision overseas.
“In recent years, interest in TNE from local quality agencies, regulators and governments has grown significantly. In response, we have been working with several countries to co-create regulatory frameworks that enable robust local quality assurance of incoming TNE provision to ensure that TNE growth is sustainable and meets local needs,” says Stowers.
TNE growth has created real opportunities, but quality assurance has not kept up. Stig Arne Skjerven, Chair, UNESCO Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education, says many countries lack coherent frameworks for assuring cross-border provision, and what exists was primarily designed for campus-based domestic education.
A UNESCO research paper prepared for the Global Convention’s States Parties last year identifies five major gaps in TNE quality assurance, including no agreed international definition of quality, weak regulatory frameworks, lack of shared standards, technological risks and a transparency deficit.
“Without reliable information about which institutions and programmes meet acceptable standards, learners and governments are left exposed,” Skjerven tells QS Insights.
Jurisdiction and implementation gaps
At the heart of the TNE quality challenge is a simple question: whose rules apply when a student is sitting in a classroom in Southeast Asia, learning from a local tutor, but studying for a European degree? Skjerven argues that this is rarely resolved clearly.
“Curriculum standards diverge between systems that prescribe specific inputs and those that assess outcomes, while some host countries require locally recognised faculty credentials that international partners cannot easily meet,” he says.
Anna Gover is Director of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), and Elena Cirlan is Senior Policy and Project Coordinator, ENQA. They point out that while the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area apply to all forms of delivery, they are not implemented consistently at national or institutional level for TNE delivered outside Europe by European institutions.
They note that TNE often falls between the gaps when there is no explicit requirement for a national framework to be applied to education delivered outside the sending country.
The risks are greatest at key points in the student journey. Differences in oversight at every stage, from admissions and student support to assessment, can create risks for academic standards. Dr Fabrizio Trifiró, global TNE and quality assurance expert and International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) Board Member, observes that no TNE sending country currently has a system in place that can demonstrate TNE operations are quality assured in a way that is truly comparable to national provision at home.
Revenue vs rigour
In the competitive world of international higher education, the pressure to generate revenue often clashes with the slow, resource-intensive work of quality assurance.
Many quality failures in TNE are not the result of a single academic defect but a gradual weakening of governance structures, where responsibilities become blurred between awarding institutions and local delivery partners.
Day-to-day decisions on staffing, timetabling and assessment can become compromised by commercial pressures. Skjerven also notes that when TNE expansion is driven primarily by commercial incentives, institutions may struggle to maintain the sustained investment required to tackle lapses.
A recurring risk is an over reliance on domestic quality routines without sufficient localisation: this can create risks when institutions assume domestic processes transfer easily across borders, while host realities and student needs are not fully integrated into quality management.
Stowers emphasises that the “link tutor” is fundamental to the smooth running of these partnerships.
They provide the academic and operational bridge between institutions, helping ensure consistent assessment and supervision. When these links weaken, the credibility of the qualification can quickly erode.
Rethinking equivalence
The golden rule of TNE has long been that the quality of offshore provision must be comparable to that of the home campus. However, as delivery models become more complex, the meaning of “comparability” is now being debated.
Dr Trifiró suggests that while there is unanimous agreement that learning outcomes must be equivalent, views on the comparability of the student experience differ. Those adopting a learning outcomes-based approach argue that as long as students are supported to achieve the expected knowledge and competencies, the specific “inputs” - such as the mode of delivery or campus facilities - can legitimately vary.
Some countries receiving TNE have developed stronger systems to assure the quality of incoming programmes, requiring foreign programmes to meet standards similar to those applied to national institutions. “But this is more the exception than the rule,” Dr Trifiró tells QS Insights.
“It is generally accepted in international policy documents… that the responsibility for the quality assurance of TNE rests with both the quality assurance bodies of the sending and receiving countries.”
Student support is perhaps the most overlooked gap. Students in TNE often fall into a grey zone for welfare, complaints and academic support, belonging fully to neither institution. “For the States Parties to the Global and Regional Conventions, recognition is a right, and how we protect students in TNE, their investment and their efforts, needs to be a central question in any governance framework,” adds Skjerven.
The upcoming global recommendation under the Global Convention, to be adopted in June 2027, is expected to provide concrete guidance on institutional responsibilities toward students in cross-border arrangements.”
This requires a move away from traditional, “input-focused” audits toward more dynamic, risk-based monitoring. Traditional models built for single-country, campus-based provision tend to produce either excessive administrative burdens or insufficient quality assurance when applied to TNE.
Stowers notes that the QAA has refreshed its TNE Quality Scheme to move beyond baseline compliance, focusing instead on a culture of continuous improvement and peer learning. By tracking outcomes like employability and post-study pathways, regulators can find early signals of risk that traditional audits might miss.
The risks are not theoretical. Branch campuses established without adequate sustainability planning have left students stranded when financial models collapsed or geopolitical conditions shifted.
Some examples of TNE models which did not succeed as planned include the University of New South Wales Asia campus in Singapore in 2007; Michigan State University Dubai campus in 2008, and George Mason University’s campus in Ras al Khaimah in 2009.
Research on international branch campuses suggests that the risks in TNE are not purely theoretical. Data from the Cross-Border Education Research Team indicates that roughly one in five international branch campuses tracked globally has opened and later closed, with around 73 closures compared with about 387 currently operating worldwide.
Many closures occurred when ventures failed to meet enrolment expectations or encountered financial, sponsorship or regulatory difficulties.
“Fraud has multiplied alongside TNE growth: when reliable information about legitimate institutions and accreditors is hard to access, the market for fake credentials expands, with real consequences for public safety in professionally regulated fields like medicine,” says Skjerven.
“Online and distance TNE is most exposed, as programmes can operate across many jurisdictions simultaneously without any single authority having a clear oversight mandate.”
Building global trust
The future of TNE quality assurance is increasingly tied to global diplomacy and multilateral agreements. The UNESCO Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications, which entered into force in 2023, is the first and only global UN legal framework in higher education.
Skjerven underlines that the Operational Guidelines of the Convention, adopted in 2025, already gives clear direction that the complete absence of public oversight of a TNE arrangement may be considered a substantial difference justifying non-recognition of the qualification.
As quality assurance serves as the “proxy for trust” in international education, the States Parties to the Convention are expected to negotiate a global recommendation on quality assurance by June 2027 addressing cross-border and transnational delivery.
However, the path to global standards is complicated by a rise in “regulatory nationalism” and shifting geopolitical alliances. Gover and Cirlan observe a tension between the general openness for internationalisation and a political shift toward nationalist tendencies, which risks creating disjointed policies.
Furthermore, tighter immigration and visa policies in major education hubs are pushing more TNE toward fully online models, the very sector that is currently the least well-covered by existing quality frameworks.
To protect the future of the sector, the focus must shift from one-directional regulation to collaborative, cross-border partnerships between quality assurance agencies. Cooperation between the agencies of the sending and receiving countries to conduct joint evaluations is an example of good practice, though it remains resource-intensive.
As Dr Trifiró argues, both quality assurance gaps and overlaps call for increased cross-border cooperation. Without this, the TNE market risks being undermined by “diploma mills” and low-quality providers that flourish in the absence of clear, shared information.
Ultimately, the sustainability of transnational education depends on universities treating TNE not as an export commodity but as a core academic mission subject to the same scrutiny as programmes delivered on the home campus.
As Skjerven notes, internationalisation must be mission-driven: the financial model should serve the academic mission, not the other way around.