When next year's crop of high-school graduates arrive at Oxford University in the fall, they will be joined by a new face: Andrew Hamilton, the 55-year-old provost   of Yale, who will become Oxford's vice-chancellor -- a position equal to university president in America. Hamilton isn't the only educator crossing the Atlantic. Schools in France, Egypt, Singapore, etc. have also recently made top-level hires from abroad. Yet the talent flow isn't universal. High-level personnel   tend to head in only one direction: Outward from America. The chief reason is that American schools don't tend to seriously consider looking abroad. For example, when the board of the University of Colorado searched for a new president, it wanted a leader familiar with the state government, a major source of the university's budget. "We didn't do any global consideration," says Patricia Hayes, the board's chair. The board finally picked Bruce Benson, a 69-year-old Colorado businessman and political activist who is likely to do well in the main task of modern university presidents: fund-raising. Fund-raising is a particularly American thing, since U.S. schools rely heavily on donations. The fund-raising ability is largely a product of experience and necessity. Many European universities, meanwhile, are still mostly dependent on government funding. But government support has failed to keep pace with rising student numbers. The decline in government support has made fund-raising an increasingly necessary ability among administrators  , and has made hiring committees hungry for Americans. In the past few years, well-known schools around the world have joined the trend. In 2011, when Cambridge University appointed Alison Richard, another former Yale provost, as its vice-chancellor, the university publicly stressed that in her previous job she had overseen   " a major strengthening of Yale's financial position". Of course, fund-raising isn't the only skill outsiders offer. The globalization of education means more universities will be seeking heads with international experience of some kind to promote international programs and attract a global student body. Foreigners can offer a fresh perspective   on established practices. In what way do top-level administrators from abroad contribute to university development?
They can improve the university's image. They will bring with them more international personnel. They will view a lot of things from a new angle. They can set up new academic subjects.