So far this book has focused on the UK. But higher education in the UK system is not exceptional. It shares many features with other Northern and Western European higher education systems, notably in Scandinavia and the Netherlands. The paradox of Brexit is that it has come at a time when the UK and other European systems have been converging rather than diverging, despite the belief (boast?) that England's high-fees experiment represents a radical rupture from the general European model of state-funded free-tuition higher education. Nor has this convergence been all been one way, from the rest of Europe towards the UK, as some believe. A better way to describe it may be as a shared effort to build a common European higher education (and, in particular, research) space.

The influence of the US higher education system remains powerful. That influence is expressed in conceptual terms; the world's first mass system inevitably produced some of the most influential conceptualisations of mass higher education, through the work of Martin Trow, Burton Clark and others. It is also expressed in terms of personal connections and experience, particularly in terms of traffic between elite universities. Anglophone solidarity, however frayed and diminished, still counts, implying there are greater social, cultural and political affinities between the UK and the US than with the rest of Europe, despite compelling contrary evidence. Post-imperial and post-colonial relationships with both ‘old’ and ‘new’ Commonwealth countries, although no longer subordinate or deferential, also remain important. As a result of these multiple interactions between the UK and other world systems many of the characteristics of, trends within and challenges to UK higher education are shared with many other higher education systems.

Nevertheless, it is important to raise our sights beyond the UK. This chapter is an attempt to offer, an inevitably brief and sketchy, comparative gaze. It is divided into three main sections. First, the shape and trajectories of global higher education are considered. Mass higher education, after all, is a global phenomenon, active in every country and on every continent. The second section focuses on the process of internationalisation in its various aspects: flows of ideas, of staff, of students and of reputation. The third, and longest, section discusses in more detail three world regions: Europe (including, of course, the UK); North America, in particular the US; and East Asia, the home of so-called ‘Confucian’ higher education systems.