Ben Wildavsky wrote a lot about the Abu Dhabi campus and other international expansions by American universities in his book The Great Brain Race (about which I’ll have a piece soon), but without Allen’s skeptical view. While NYU is good at making this venture sound like an exciting and pathbreaking move into the bright, globalized educational future, Allen evidently regards it as conspicuous consumption that benefits only a few NYU bigwigs.

In cases such as these (and there are quite a few), the question should be: What is the point? Is there really any educational synergy in having a foreign campus? Is the teaching of undergrads improved in any way? Is faculty research somehow enhanced? Or is this just a matter of prestige mania gripping college presidents?