The valuable coordination of sponsored international education in a modern developmental state

Abstract This study utilizes a novel analytical framework to examine large-scale development-focused scholarship programs for international higher education. The Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) is systematically analyzed here utilizing its 2013–2022 annual reports. Applying the orders of worth approach, LPDP’s claims and justifications towards the common good are studied, alongside the organization’s changing policies and practices. Investigation focuses on the perceivable but uncertain value of these programs for the modern developmental state and LPDP’s efforts to overcome these ambiguities. Findings highlight challenges related to the dominant share of justifications based in human capital theory (HCT). In parallel, justifications based in nationalist sentiments have grown, as have project-centered assertions of worth. These findings are analyzed; the varied inspirational and nationalist rationale LPDP forwards and undertakings it delineates to support its claims are detailed. Reflecting on LPDP’s shifting justifications, the discussion introduces “valuable coordination,” an emergent conceptualization which nuances and problematizes narrow HCT-based understandings of education for development. The paper concludes by reviewing its findings towards better understanding the societal embeddedness of scholarship programs and how harmonization might be improved. In furthering these aims, it suggests future research into Indonesian actors’ reception of LPDP’s justifications.