When next year's crop of high-school graduates arrive at Oxford University in the fall of

2009, they'll be joined by a new face: Andrew Hamilton, the 55-year-old provost(教务长)of Yale, who'll become Oxford's vice-chancellor- a position equivalent to university president in America.

Hamilton isn't the only educator crossing the Atlantic. School in France, Egypt, Singapore, etc. have also recently made top-level hires from abroad. Higher education has become a big and competitive business nowadays, and like so many business, it's gone global. 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 ultimately picked Bruce Benson, a 69-year-old Colorado businessman and political activist(活动家) who is likely to do well in the main task of modern university presidents: fund raising. Fund raising is a distinctively 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 hiring committees hungry for Americans.

In the past few years, prominent schools around the world have joined the trend. In 2003, 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(监督) "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.

What is the current trend in higher education discussed in the passage？

A．Institutions worldwide are hiring administrators from the U.S.

B．A lot of political activists are being recruited as administrators.

C．American universities are enrolling more international students.

D．University presidents are paying more attention to fund-raising.