Higher Education (1)

This week, The Economist had an interesting series of articles on higher education, including some useful figures. Being involved in the academic world either in France or in the U.S., the Joker to the Thief is always eager to offer some material for further discussions.

The magazine identified a number of challenges facing universities throughout the world today and particularly in Europe:

• Democratization of higher education or “massification”:

The proportion of adults with higher educational qualifications in the OECD countries almost doubled between 1975 and 2000, from 22% to 41%.

• The rise of the knowledge economy;

The OECD calculates that between 1985 and 1997 the contribution of knowledge-based industries to total value added increased from 51% to 59% in Germany and from 45% to 51% in Britain. R&D 1/3 of nest companies’ investment

• Globalization

The number of people from OECD countries studying abroad has doubled over the past 20 years, to 1.9m.

• Competition.

The World Bank calculates that global spending on higher education amounts to $300 billion a year, or 1% of global economic output. There are more than 80m students worldwide, and 3.5m people are employed to teach them or look after them.

Then, the Economist being… the Economist, they think the solution is to be found in a more free market-oriented system of higher education similar to that found in the United-States. We shall continue our discussion on this idea tomorrow.