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| Photo: The Economist |
“AFTER God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship and settled Civil Government, one of the next things we longed for and looked for was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.” So ran the first university fundraising brochure, sent from Harvard College to England in 1643 to drum up cash.
America’s early and lasting enthusiasm for higher education has given it the biggest and best-funded system in the world. Hardly surprising, then, that other countries are emulating its model as they send ever more of their school-leavers to get a university education. But, as our special report argues, just as America’s system is spreading, there are growing concerns about whether it is really worth the vast sums spent on it.
The American way
The modern research university, a marriage of the Oxbridge college
and the German research institute, was invented in America, and has
become the gold standard for the world. Mass higher education started in
America in the 19th century, spread to Europe and East Asia in the 20th
and is now happening pretty much everywhere except sub-Saharan Africa.
The global tertiary-enrolment ratio—the share of the student-age
population at university—went up from 14% to 32% in the two decades to
2012; in that time, the number of countries with a ratio of more than
half rose from five to 54. University enrolment is growing faster even
than demand for that ultimate consumer good, the car. The hunger for
degrees is understandable: these days they are a requirement for a
decent job and an entry ticket to the middle class.There are, broadly, two ways of satisfying this huge demand. One is the continental European approach of state funding and provision, in which most institutions have equal resources and status. The second is the more market-based American model, of mixed private-public funding and provision, with brilliant, well-funded institutions at the top and poorer ones at the bottom.
The world is moving in the American direction. More universities in more countries are charging students tuition fees. And as politicians realise that the “knowledge economy” requires top-flight research, public resources are being focused on a few privileged institutions and the competition to create world-class universities is intensifying.
In some ways, that is excellent. The best universities are responsible for many of the discoveries that have made the world a safer, richer and more interesting place. But costs are rising. OECD countries spend 1.6% of GDP on higher education, compared with 1.3% in 2000. If the American model continues to spread, that share will rise further. America spends 2.7% of its GDP on higher education.
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Source: The Economist
