The objective of this article for reflection is to analyze two current trends in higher education; competitiveness and virtual education, it is important to know these trends due to the benefits they bring in the educational field and the advantages they offer to students. The methodology used was the review, the consultation of authors and works from recent years to the present, in order to make comparisons over time and analyze the positions of some authors. Globalization is a worldwide phenomenon, of continuous updating, which is involved in various fields of action, one of them is education, for this reason they generate several trends among which we have competitiveness and virtual education, with broad concepts discussion. Therefore, educational quality requirements must be met, research from the study centers, continuous learning, acquisition of investigative competencies and others, that form integral students, interested in the sustainable improvement of the regions, with capacities to perform both academically and in labor. It is concluded that talking about competitiveness is mentioning the educational quality, the training of academic subjects with humanistic sensitivity, which are trainers of people who can contribute to the continuous improvements of changing and accelerated societies in the globalized world.