A Local Comparative Study of Inbound Student Mobility and Internationalization in Grandes Écoles and Universities

The increasing impact of marketization on higher education and global attention on referencing systems has discretely transformed the academic world. We observed some nations’ overemphasis on economic benefits in international education and some nations’ huge investment in their HEIs building for better ranking positions. We observed the quasi-gratuity of higher education fees in France; and in spite of their unsatisfactory academic performance on international rankings, French HEIs have always been the top favorite hosting destinations. We also observed the lack of knowledge of grandes ecoles in the international academic community and a mysterious image created by the complexity of this dual system for French HEIs. To examine the contradictory facts and reveal the complex phenomena, two grandes ecoles and two universities specializing in similar study fields were selected to be sites of exploration. The purpose of this local comparative study was mainly to explore how the two groups of institutions have developed their respective strategies in the international student recruitment process in the context of internationalization. This study used a qualitative approach for data collection incorporating interviews and documentation analysis. The analysis revealed both the pain and the gain that the grandes ecoles and universities have been experiencing in internationalization and the comparative results related to inbound study mobility in these institutions.