Natalya   Vasylyshyna
Tutor of English   language , Kyiv

Student  academic mobility in higher education 
as an ideal  in a hyper-modern world

Academic mobility in higher education, it is a commonplace to note, is an old, not a new phenomenon. It is an old phenomenon because the idea of a university is of a place of teaching and learning open to all, whatever their provenance, provided they can benefit themselves and others; and universities date back hundreds of years. In principle there is no limitation and universities are have always been international institutions in their composition, but the fact that, despite their international character, universities today are de facto national institutions is mainly a function of the way they have been financed. Since what students can afford to pay is far less than the funds needed, in contemporary universities, for teaching, administration and, above all, for research, universities have had to be partially financed by the state, in the majority of cases and in most countries. 
In the 21st century, when some states can no longer afford to finance universities for their full budget needs, students from other countries, and the fees they bring, are becoming a ‘natural’ part of the student body. In some countries increasing numbers of self-funding, ‘private’ universities are more than willing to take students from any country. In other countries, such as in Scandinavia, neither international nor home students as yet pay fees, and there are different reasons, as we shall see, for encouraging international students. Whether financially motivated or not, universities are, once again, places where students—and staff, but for different reasons—hail from many nationalities, and finance is almost everywhere a major factor in student mobility.  
Another factor seems to be a general assumption that universities must engage with ‘internationalization’, against an economic background of ‘globalization’. This is particularly evident in the Europe of the European Union and associated states such as Norway, where the mobility of students is an element of a policy to encourage all Europeans to be mobile—whether in employment or in study—and thus to create both a more flexible workforce, and a European society engaging citizens with an experience of a European identity. Student mobility has intensified, becoming a more richly diversified experience as post-modern societies develop transnational ways of being and doing and as tertiary institutions open up to vital international exchanges: 
- in  2004, 2.5 million students were studying in a country other than their own 
- their number had grown by45% between 2005 and 2011.
Student mobility is commonly regarded as the most visible part of the internationalization of tertiary education. In the last two decades, the political context concerning  student mobility has changed both regionally in Europe, with the development of Community programmers in the 80s, culminating with the Bologna agreement in 1999, and  internationally, with the greater part played by competition in the international educational market, itself a reflection of the globalization of the labor market. Moreover, a mobile student is a double agent: s/he is considered as outgoing from her country of origin and as incoming in her chosen country of study.                                                       To sum up, it is clear that student mobility is now in many cases just another sphere of economic activity, in between international migrations and “human capital formation”, to use Enesco parlance. As a result of this commercialization, national policies in this area question the very principles of our education systems, opposing countries with selective access against those with open access, countries with tuition fees against those practicing free education, countries targeting elites against those facilitating underprivileged students. They also highlight different views of education: as an international commodity in a market, which some wish to see even more “liberalized” or as a source of national, cultural and social development to encourage social cohesion.