New Delhi, March 12 -- The purpose of education is deep social impact. This is the essence of good governance. The promise of education is to transform lives for the better, to lift the marginalized and the left-out, and to create a level playing field. Seen along these lines, the purpose of international education ought to be the fostering of collaboration to address the developmental challenges that confront the global community, such as, in the health sector or rapid response to natural disasters or climate change, to name a few.

Yet, this certainly does not appear to be the overriding rationale behind the strong outreach by western universities to tap into the international student market. According to current data, the overseas stud...