NYU may not be the only U.S. university pursuing a presence in Shanghai.
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Governor Mo Fuchun of Shanghai's Minhang District announced his administration was courting several Ivy League universities, hoping to attract them to the city by 2015. This initiative comes shortly after China's Ministry of Education approved NYU's proposal to open a degree-granting campus in Shanghai's Pudong district this January.
At a January meeting of the district's People's Congress, the governor said that Cornell University and Columbia University could be the first Ivy Leagues to have branches in Shanghai.
According to Cornell provost Kent Fuchs, Cornell has not yet made a commitment to expand its presence to Shanghai. However, the city is one of several regions where the university is considering opening additional programs.
"Cornell ... already [has] a number of programs in Asia and we are considering which regions we should consider for additional programs," Fuchs wrote in an e-mail. "Shanghai is one of several important regions under consideration."
Though Mo said Columbia could likely establish a presence in the region, the university declined to comment on its plans.
NYU spokesperson John Beckman said the university welcomes the competition from other universities.
"It is certainly interesting to see all the universities that seem to be following NYU's lead in establishing a global presence," Beckman said. "NYU is the acknowledged pace-setter in this important development in higher education."
Not all Ivy League universities are looking to Shanghai to expand.
Donald Filer, director of the office of International Affairs at Yale University, said Yale will not build in Shanghai. Princeton University and Dartmouth College are also not considering expanding abroad.
"We are not considering the expansion [in Shanghai], nor any others," Princeton provost Chris Eisgruber said. "Princeton's internationalization strategy emphasizes flexible, faculty-driven partnerships, not brick-and-mortar campuses in other countries."
Beckman said NYU is not threatened by China's proposal to other universities.
"I don't think we know enough about these other proposed programs — which, I believe, are at a very preliminary stage — to conclude whether they would be similar to what we plan to create in Shanghai," he said. "It will not make a difference to our planning."
Steven Wheatley, vice president of the American Council of Learned Societies, predicted that higher education institutions will continue to expand globally.
"It's not surprising that a thoughtful and ambitious leader would seek to attract these institutions of highest quality to a world-class city," Wheatley said.
Wheatley said the Shanghai government is "extremely wise to make this sort of investment in human capital."
"I would be very surprised if in 20 years almost every elite American university didn't have some sort of international presence," he said. "The bubble may burst, [but] the long-term trend line is clear."
