New International Exchange Programs between the United States and the Former Yugoslavia: Cross Cultural Pubic Higher Education Collaborations

The present report describes new international student and faculty exchange programs between Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH’s) public universities in Sarajevo and Tuzla, the University of Dubrovnik (Croatia) and America’s public University of Missouri- St. Louis. Building the program from the ground up, challenges and successes are reviewed associated with creating the student and faculty exchanges between the United States and BiH and Croatia after the end of the 1990s Balkan wars. Decades of communist central planning (1945-1992) immediately after World War II needed to be  reformed in former Yugoslavia, amounting to a regional revolution in higher education. The present article summarizes recent developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s and Croatia’s Bologna-compatible, educational and civil institutions after the 1990s Balkan war of aggression, and the role of the United States in that process.