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Find opportunities that are right for you to continue your education outside your home country.
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© 2025 Freedom Degree
Freedom Degree, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. © 2025 | Powered by Strapi
Sep 01, 2026
We spoke with Daniel Calingaert, Managing Director of the Global Higher Education Alliance for the 21st Century (GHEA21) and Dean for Global Programs at Bard College, about a new model of international higher education, supporting displaced students, the role of liberal arts, artificial intelligence, and his vision of the university of the future.
For decades, international education has remained a privilege reserved for those who could afford to study abroad. But what happens to students whose lives have been disrupted by war, political persecution, or forced displacement? Can international education become truly accessible without building new universities—simply by connecting the ones that already exist?
GHEA21 describes itself not simply as a university network, but as a new model of global higher education. What exactly has stopped working in the traditional university model built around stable geography, predictable biographies, and linear educational trajectories?
You're asking a big question, and there are many challenges in higher education. I would say that GHEA is trying to address a particular challenge, which is that international education is not very accessible. If you look even among American university students or students in the European Union, only about 10% can actually study in a different country. And obviously, it's a very rich experience that can also be transformative, but it means that the vast majority of university students don't have these opportunities. Now, there are more and more online opportunities for international education, but they tend to be, let's say, ad hoc. What GHEA is doing is creating a pathway for international education that is accessible to all of the students at our partner universities in different places and is fully integrated into their studies. And what that means is that a university student can take part in international education throughout their four years of undergraduate study. What it also means is that students in places who wouldn't even imagine studying with students from other countries can do that. And in GHEA's network, we have students in Palestine, in Bangladesh, in refugee camps, in Kenya, and we have female Afghan students in Afghanistan, and these are quite precious opportunities for them.
How is it different from ordinary online education, and how does it work in practice?
There are many variants of online education, and often they are self-paced, which means students can study on their own schedule. Some of those can even be very rigorous, high-quality courses. The challenge is that it's typically a very isolating experience. In those formats, students often have very little contact with faculty, let alone with other students, which means they have to be very self-motivated, and that's hard to do. Online education also has the disadvantage that if you're studying certain subjects, like the humanities or the social sciences, you lose much of the richness of the education that comes from real, in-depth conversations with other students. What GHEA does, in essence, is take the model of an American liberal arts college, which has small, very student-centered, very interactive classes, and recreate that environment online.
So, does that mean you only have live lessons online? Not recorded lessons, but live lessons, and you have a specific time they have to show up, right?
Yes, the main difference is that, rather than a physical classroom, it's an online classroom where everyone needs to show up. We ask all students to be on camera. Obviously, connection issues mean not everyone can, but they're expected to be present, active, and engaged.
We have worked with faculty to design their courses, ensuring they create student-centered, interactive courses and use teaching methods that engage students. For example, when I teach, I say hello and welcome everyone, then I have them write immediately. Here's a question, and everyone is writing, everyone is thinking. Then they use what they've been thinking about to start a conversation. We also have group projects, so students from many different places have to explore an issue together and come up with a presentation or some other assignment.
But how do you solve the problem across different time zones?
In most cases, it works. For example, faculty who teach in the US offer courses early in the morning, which means some of the students, say, in Myanmar or Bangladesh, are studying at night. But they want to do it, and they come.
How do universities within this kind of network cooperate with one another? How does it technically work?
We offer about 50 courses every semester, and any student anywhere in the network can take any of these courses. For instance, if you are a student at the American University of Central Asia, you can take courses offered by Bard College, Al-Quds Bard, BRAC University in Bangladesh, and so on. In essence, it's a shared curriculum that is available to any student in the network.
For most of our students, GHEA courses are either supplementary or count toward the degree they receive from their own university. So again, if you're a BRAC student, let's say you're studying engineering, you'll get an engineering degree from BRAC University, but you can also take courses from GHEA. In a case like this, GHEA courses in the social and environmental sciences are a way to supplement your degree program.
The common currency is that all of the partner universities recognize the course credits earned at other universities.
Is it correct to say that you're building an alternative pipeline for displaced students, or is it for everybody?
Both. About half of our students are displaced students, so there is a very strong emphasis on that. But the other half are traditional students, and for us, it's very important to recognize that this combination and integration benefits all of them. I've seen this with my own students at Bard. When they're in conversation with, for instance, a female student in Afghanistan, it really expands their understanding of what the world is like in different places and challenges their thinking in ways that simply wouldn't happen if they were studying only with, say, American students in a classroom in upstate New York.
For displaced students, we offer various pathways into higher education. Smolny Beyond Borders is a good example for Russian students, whether still in the country or those who have left it. They can enroll in individual courses at Smolny. All courses are delivered to an international university standard, so regardless of a student's previous educational background, doing well in them demonstrates that they are capable of succeeding in this type of academic environment. From there, they would have the opportunity to take the GHEA courses offered by other universities, continue taking additional courses, earn academic credits, and gradually build a portfolio that can either be transferred to another university or, at the very least, put them on a pathway toward completing a degree.
We also have a partner organisation, the Afghan Female Student Outreach Program, which provides exactly this kind of pathway for women in Afghanistan who have virtually no other opportunities to continue their education. Some of these students—including several I've taught myself—had already completed, for example, three years of medical school at Kabul University or other institutions before their education was interrupted.
They've managed to find a route back into higher education, although unfortunately not into their first-choice field of medicine. Instead, through our pathway, they can work toward a degree in the social sciences.
They begin by taking individual courses. Many need two or three courses before they reach the academic level we expect. Often their English is excellent, but they come from educational systems based heavily on rote learning, so they're not yet accustomed to developing independent arguments, analysing evidence, and thinking critically. Those initial courses are designed to challenge them in exactly those ways.
Once they've successfully completed those courses and earned credits, they can move on to GHEA courses—courses offered across our global network, where students from anywhere in the world study together.
Since last September, Bard has also launched what we call the Bard Global Degree Program—a fully online Bard degree designed specifically for displaced students. Afghan students can progress through this pathway and ultimately earn a Bard degree online.
The same step-by-step model—starting with individual courses, demonstrating academic readiness, accumulating credits, and then progressing to degree-level study—is at the heart of many of our pathways.
More broadly, when we work with displaced students, we do so with the understanding that they are not simply responding to an immediate emergency but are seeking a pathway to a full degree that can eventually lead to graduate study, employment, and other long-term opportunities.
We are open to displaced students who may not have formal academic credentials and who often need a bridge program to prepare them for the kind of rigorous courses that we offer. We're committed to providing that support.
Most of our displaced students are pursuing degrees at institutions such as the American University of Afghanistan, Parami University, which is now operating in exile from Myanmar, and others. These students already have a home institution, and those universities are committed to helping them complete full degree programs over the long term. Our cooperation through GHEA complements those programs by giving students access to a much wider range of courses and, just as importantly, the opportunity to study alongside peers from different countries and educational backgrounds.
Do you welcome new members to your network? How is it possible for a university to become a member of the network? Are there any requirements? How does it work?
We are always open to conversations with universities that want to join the network. But becoming a member is a significant commitment, so we want every institution to understand what it involves before joining.
We've learned this from experience. In the early years, we had many more member institutions, but some of them were not actively engaged and eventually left the network.
The reason is simple. If a university approaches GHEA asking, "What do we get out of this?" the answer is: not very much in material terms. There's no money in it. Universities join this network because they share a commitment to academic freedom and believe in expanding access to international education. Those shared values are what hold the network together.
And we see what it is. It's 5 or 6 years that we've been operating, and we've dealt with one crisis after another in Myanmar, in Afghanistan, in Ukraine. I can see that in those conversations when we're talking about how we respond. We have a monthly meeting of the chief academic officers. There's no posturing, no one trying to advance their reputation or figure out what they can get out of it. It's very practical. Everyone goes around the table saying, I can offer this, I can offer that. I'd like to help. I can't help in this situation. It's really a shared understanding that, you know, the latest crisis might be in Russia, but the next crisis might affect them.
More established universities in the network have a long-standing commitment to displaced students. For instance, the American University of Beirut has welcomed displaced students from the Middle East for decades. Similarly, Witwatersrand University in South Africa has been a haven for displaced Africans from many different countries. That shared commitment and those values run very deep in their DNA. So when we add new partners, we look for institutions that share that commitment.
What do you think universities need to understand about displaced students? What has been the most difficult part of your experience?
The students who have to take courses online often have unreliable internet, so they can't participate as fully as we would like, for example. But the fundamental challenge is that if universities are truly committed to serving displaced students, they need not just to show flexibility but to be truly open to those students' needs. So, understanding that, in many cases, students are dealing with trauma as well as academic challenges, I know a lot of our faculty are sharing expertise on trauma-informed pedagogy. The institutions truly committed to displaced students see the talent that many other institutions don't see, recognize its value, and, in essence, have an attitude: We come to you as much as you come to us. We, in essence, try to partner with communities, understand what they need, and value what they bring. And we see that, for example, American students learn as much from refugee students as refugee students learn from American students.
In contrast, some very prestigious universities offer full scholarships for displaced students or other students from marginalized communities, but they'll pick the individuals who look most promising, and the expectation is that those students will come to that institution, fully integrate, and do everything on that institution's terms.
What do international universities most often underestimate about the experience of displaced students?
I would say traditional measures of assessing academic preparedness. A classic example is that many of our refugee students in Kenya don't have a high school diploma, even if they finish high school, they may not have documentation. So a traditional measure would say, well, you don't meet the basic criteria; that's the end of the conversation.
We take a different approach. We can do our own testing, so we can assess student potential and abilities. Forget the paperwork; we'll make our own assessment and identify a lot of talent that gets overlooked. Because we have bridging programs, we're looking at potential, and even if you're not ready today to start a university-level course, we know we can get you there in 6 months, a year, or however long it takes. And we've built a pathway to say, okay, if you have enough English language skills and we see you can think critically, we'll take it from here. So we'll give you the language courses, the academic skills courses, and, bit by bit, initially take maybe one course with the GHEA network. If you can handle that, we'll start more. And so, thinking of a whole pathway starting wherever the student is to a bachelor's degree.
How can a student tell whether a university is generally prepared to work with international at-risk students, rather than simply claiming it's on their website?
Well, a lot depends on what information the students can get. Obviously, the best insight would come from other displaced students at the university, who can offer a candid assessment of the experience. But I would say, in general, what they should look for is the mentality and approach: are we trying to meet students where they are, or do we expect students to come fully prepared and do everything on the university's own terms?
What about online education in general? As you remember, after the pandemic, there was a discussion that online education would change the landscape forever. What turned out to be true, and what didn't?
Well, with our own courses, it was interesting. We actually started at the very beginning of the pandemic, when everyone was teaching online. Almost by accident, we realized that we could simply open all of our courses to students across the entire network. That made the courses more interesting and gave students many more options.
Then, when universities returned to in-person teaching, we thought, "Oh my gosh, everyone's sick of Zoom. This might be the end of what we're doing." But instead, we saw only a small dip in enrolments for one semester. After that, numbers picked up again and continued to grow.
We realized that students at traditional, brick-and-mortar universities might take three or four courses in person and still choose to take one GHEA course online because it's a distinctive experience. It's part of an international education—the opportunity to interact with students from around the world. The feedback we receive from students on that experience has been overwhelmingly positive.
For other students—again, Afghans, many Russian students, and others—online learning isn't simply an option; it's their only opportunity to continue their education.
But how should the success of global education projects like this one be measured? By the number of students, by real-life outcomes, or by the quality of education and the experience?
We look at a range of different indicators. Enrolment numbers are important because they show student demand, but they're only one measure.
We also spend a great deal of time evaluating the quality of our courses. From the very beginning, we've collected student evaluations at the end of every semester, asking questions such as: Would you take another course with us? Would you recommend it to a friend? Consistently, more than 90 percent of students answer yes.
But we weren't satisfied with measuring satisfaction alone. We redesigned our evaluation process to gain a much clearer understanding of what students are actually learning. We recognize that we have to offer something that is not simply equivalent to what students can get at their home university, but something distinctive and genuinely valuable. Courses have to be intentionally designed, and instructors need to teach in ways that encourage students to learn from one another.
For example, one of the questions we ask in our evaluations is: To what extent did this course challenge you to think about issues from a different geographic or cultural perspective? That's the kind of intellectual engagement we're trying to create.
As for longer-term outcomes, it's still too early to draw firm conclusions for many of our displaced students. Their future opportunities remain limited for reasons that often have little to do with education itself.
Nevertheless, we're already seeing encouraging signs. Many of our students are already working for international organizations and local non-profits.
Among our refugee students in Africa, many have gone on to receive scholarships to study abroad or have secured employment, including positions within refugee camps. A key reason is that their education has taught them to think critically, which distinguishes them from many of their peers. At our partner institution, Al-Quds University, students who have followed a liberal arts curriculum are also often more successful in finding employment than those who have pursued narrowly professional programs, such as pharmacology.
That's particularly interesting because, in many of these societies, families initially question the value of a liberal arts education. They ask: What kind of job can you get by studying history or sociology?
The value of professional degrees is easy to explain. If you study engineering, you're preparing to become an engineer. If you study medicine, you're preparing to become a doctor or a medical researcher. Liberal arts education is a different proposition.
Our answer is that we teach students how to think independently, adapt to changing circumstances, understand complexity and nuance, and continue learning throughout their lives. Those are the qualities that prepare people not just for a first job, but for a lifetime of learning, adaptation, and professional growth.
We've now been doing this long enough to have evidence that the outcomes are very positive. For example, in Palestine, we've seen that graduates of liberal arts programs have strong employment outcomes.
I'm also thinking of our partner, Parami University, which was forced into exile from Myanmar. Later this month—or perhaps even next week—they'll graduate their very first class of bachelor's students. We'll soon be able to see their long-term outcomes as well.
Let's talk about your personal view on modern global trends. How do you think artificial intelligence and digital technologies in general will change universities?
It already is, and it still is a challenge to adapt. The obvious challenge is that AI is making it harder for students to focus on writing their own essays, right, you know, their own essays, or even reading full books rather than getting summaries. It's a reality of this world, and the way I think about it is that even if we really dislike AI, we have to teach our students how to go into, or prepare our students to go into, a world where AI already exists.
AI is going to be everywhere. It will become increasingly powerful and pervasive, so simply trying to ignore it isn't a realistic option.
Let me give you an example. This past semester I taught a course on public writing, and in a couple of classes I deliberately asked students to use AI. I wanted us to work with it together so that we could discuss what constitutes an appropriate and ethical use of AI, and what crosses the line. Interestingly, many of my students turned out to be more skeptical about AI than I was.
I think there are perfectly legitimate educational uses for AI, but it's equally important that students learn to think critically about the technology itself. We have to engage with it thoughtfully.
At the same time, faculty are still grappling with a fundamental challenge: how do we ensure that students continue to do their own thinking and writing? Writing isn't just a mechanical task—it is a process of critical thinking. It's through writing that people clarify ideas, develop arguments, and test their own reasoning.
We can adapt our teaching in a number of ways. For example, we can ask students to do more writing during class, or structure assignments as a sequence of stages: first submitting an outline and core argument, then receiving feedback, then producing a first draft, revising it, and so on. That way, we're evaluating the student's thinking throughout the process rather than simply assessing a final product that might have been generated by a machine.
But I have to admit that we haven't solved this problem yet. Like many educators, we're still learning how best to adapt our teaching to a world in which AI is becoming an increasingly important part of education.
Do you think artificial intelligence will make education more accessible, including for at-risk and refugee students, or will it deepen educational inequality? For example, if someone is in a country with limited internet access, like Afghanistan, they can't use artificial intelligence to the same extent as students in the United States, right?
I do think there are inequalities in access to AI, although perhaps not as many as I would have expected.
For example, when I ran this exercise with my students, I began by asking whether everyone had access to an AI tool or whether I should simply use my own account and share my screen. I was teaching students from places like Afghanistan and Myanmar, yet every one of them replied, "No, no, we're fine—we all have access." So, at least at that basic level, access itself wasn't the problem.
What became apparent, however, was that the AI models reflect significant geographical biases in the information they rely on. They are trained primarily on material originating from the United States, Europe, and other parts of the Global North, so their knowledge is much stronger in those contexts.
I remember one example in particular. An Afghan student wrote about an armed conflict in which the Pakistani military was carrying out attacks inside Afghanistan. When the student asked the AI to comment on the text, the model simply didn't know about the events being described. That illustrated quite clearly that these systems have important blind spots and embedded biases.
There are also practical inequalities. Students who rely heavily on AI often use the free versions of these tools, and those come with significant limitations. Typically, they allow only limited use before prompting users to subscribe to a paid version. For students with limited financial resources, those subscription costs can become a real barrier, creating another layer of inequality in access to these technologies.
I've spoken with a number of people who are enthusiastic about using AI to provide students with more individualized instruction. AI can provide personalized feedback and adapt elements of the learning process to the needs of individual students. GHEA, however, takes a different approach. We place much greater value on direct human interaction between students and faculty.
In your view, how will international higher education look in 10 or 15 years? What will be the major changes? What would you expect?
I find it very difficult to make predictions about the future, but there are a couple of things I hope to see.
First, I hope there will be much greater integration of international education into mainstream university programs around the world. I believe what GHEA is doing is genuinely valuable, but it's not a model that can simply be scaled up indefinitely. Instead, I hope it will inspire other institutions to replicate it or adapt its core ideas.
The central idea is actually quite simple: rather than creating countless new programs, why not share the ones we already have? That would make international education accessible to many more students—especially those who have no realistic opportunity to study abroad.
The second point I'd make is that many of the most successful higher education initiatives are highly adaptable. I think that's been one of GHEA's greatest strengths. When our partners come together, we bring proposals to the table, and everyone contributes comments. We approach discussions by saying, "Here's the challenge we're all facing. How are you dealing with it? What has worked for you?" That creates an ongoing process of mutual learning.
And that process never really ends. AI is just the latest example of a new challenge that we're trying to understand together. Earlier, it was the pandemic. That experience reinforced one of the key lessons we've learned over the years: successful educational partnerships depend not on rigid plans, but on the ability to adapt together as circumstances change.
What advice would you give to students at risk and to universities supporting them, based on your experience?
For students, I'd say one thing above all: don't settle for second best. I understand how difficult it can be to find educational opportunities, but students shouldn't feel that, simply because they're at risk or have been displaced, they have to accept a second-rate education or a program that keeps them on the margins. They should be thinking about their long-term future, not just the next immediate step. Society needs educated, capable leaders, and they should expect to become part of that future.
One of the most encouraging findings we've seen is that civic engagement is often valued even more highly by displaced and at-risk students than by students in traditional university settings, as shown in a very interesting study recently conducted by my colleagues.
Afghan students are a good example. Many of those who were forced to leave the country see civic engagement as a way of remaining connected to Afghanistan, contributing to their communities, and maintaining a sense of purpose. Perhaps most importantly, it gives them a sense of agency. They don't want to be seen as charity cases. They want to be people who have something valuable to contribute and who are gaining an education so that they can become leaders in their communities, wherever those communities may be.
As for universities, my main question would be very simple: why are you doing this? If you say you're supporting displaced or at-risk students, what's your real motivation? Is it simply to recruit a handful of exceptional students, showcase them, and enhance your institution's reputation? Or are you genuinely committed to supporting these students and prepared to invest the time, resources, and expertise needed to do it well?
I think that's a wonderful way to end our conversation. I was particularly struck by what you said about civic engagement. In a sense, when you invest in students who have already demonstrated that commitment, you're investing in people who have already decided they want to contribute to society.
Exactly. We already know they care. Education doesn't create that commitment—it strengthens it. Our role is to give these students the knowledge, the skills, and the opportunities.