The sea has been pushed back, the foundations laid, and cranes toil over the Songdo Global University Campus, a Promethean $1-billion attempt to bring thousands of students from around the world to what was once literally a Korean backwater. Due to the current economic downturn, however, U.S. university partners are scaling back commitments over concerns of sustainability. One possible indicator of Songdo’s problems in winning credibility and attracting non-Korean students can be seen at the city’s flagship International School, which has yet to teach a single student. Its state-of-the-art facilities and 21 teachers have been idle for more than a year as they wait for the ministry of education to relax its requirement that 70 percent of all students be from outside South Korea. The global campus is also haunted by the failure of U.S. branch campuses to take root in neighboring Japan in the 1980s and 1990s.Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education