Content area
Full Text
Higher education is growing rapidly, and becoming a veritable global sector in its own right. That means challenges for educators, students and policy makers.
If higher education were an industry, it would be one of the world's biggest and most dynamic. Take these numbers for the UK, for instance. The total revenue earned by universities there amounted to ¿23.4 billion (US$43 billion) in 2007/08, according to a report by Universities UK. This was comparable in gross output terms to the printing and publishing industry, and considerably larger than the pharmaceuticals industry.
Or take Australia, where education is one of the country's largest exports. Some estimates have put the value as high as Aus$i7-2 billion in 2008-09, °r about 14% of GDP, with growth of over 20% from the previous financial year. The global leader is of course the US, where higher education is estimated to employ 34 million people, or some 3% of the entire US service sector. Education is ultimately about students, and the number of students enrolled in higher education has grown steadily and strongly over the past 50 years. In fact, data from OECD's Education at a Glance shows that 30% of adults in OECD countries now have a tertiary qualification. International student numbers in the OECD have trebled in the past 20 years to more than 3.7 million, and that number can be expected to continue to grow rapidly.
The reasons for this growth are obvious: graduates earn more, have more satisfying jobs and live longer than those who don't graduate from higher education. This is as true for women, who now comprise the majority of tertiary students in OECD countries, as for men.
Developed economies rely on skilled labour to drive productivity and economic growth, as well as create a more confident and more affluent middle class. And the economic benefits of higher...