How the crisis might
transform higher education:
some scenarios
Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin
OECD
Centre for Educational Research
and Innovation
Outline
• Enrolments
• Expenditure
– Levels
– Possible impact on stakeholder
• Scenarios
Tertiary education enrolments
Evolution of the 18-24 population by 2025
(2005=100)
Source: United Nations, Population division (revision 2006)
Scenario 1: Projected tertiary enrolments in 2025
under current conditions (2005=100)
Source: OECD, Higher Education 2030, Vol. 1 Demography
Scenario 2: Projected tertiary enrolments in 2025
under recent trends (2005=100)
Source: OECD, Higher Education 2030, Vol. 1 Demography
Why the trend scenario is more likely…
• Supply will not be too limited
– Knowledge economy
– Crisis-related political reasons (better to have
students than unemployed people)
• Demand will increase
– Individual returns remain high (compared to high
school returns)
– Decrease of opportunity cost (crisis)
– Demand of retraining from unemployed workers
– Less apprenticeship available (crisis)
…with limiting factors
• Rising cost to public authorities
• Rising cost to students and families in a
context of unemployement and
saving/capital losses
• Less ability to contribute of the business
sector
Some qualitative changes in the
student population
• More demand from mature students
– More demand for short term programmes
– More demand for vocational programmes
• More difficulties for students from lower
working and lower middle classes
– Where caps on student numbers
– Where high tuition fees
– Where insufficient student aid
Tertiary educational attainment (%) of
25-64 population
Impact on tertiary education expenditure
Projections of total expenditures for tertiary
education institutions in 2025 (% of GDP):
pre-crisis scenario
GDP set at 2% growth and educational costs per head projected linearly according to 1995-2005 growth rate (constant prices)
Source: OECD, Higher Education 2030, Vol. 1 Demography
Change in student/staff ratio to stay at 2005
expenditure level
Possible Impact on stakeholders
Public funding for HE
Budget pressure
• Unemployment and
social benefits
• Consolidation of public
budgets
• Ageing-related
expenditure
• Continued expansion of
HE
• Rise of eligible students
for student aid
Response (?)
• Cuts on expenditures to
HEIs after relative
protection under stimulus
packages
• Slower growth of public
expenditures in the longer
run
• Rise in tuition fees
• Inadequate student aid (?)
• More competitive allocation
of funding and further
segmentation of systems
Private funding for HEIs
Pressure
• Less business:
– Cuts on R&D expenditures
– Cuts on corporate training
– Less endowments of
foundations
– Less willingness to have
interns and apprentices?
(unless they can contribute
to production)
Response (?)
• Less ability to fund
university research, to
fund their employees for
training and and to
participate in university
programmes
• But this source of funding
is marginal in most
countries (except Canada
and US)
Household funding for HEIs
Pressure
• Decline in revenues of
parents
• Less ability of
intergenerational transfer
as older people are hit by
budget consolidation
• Unemployment for
parents and difficulty to
work while studying
• Inadequate student aid
for lower SES
Response (?)
• Willingness to invest
more in HE where
household cost has been
low so far
• Difficulty to do so in
countries where tuition
have already rised
significantly recently
Institutional response
Revenue
Cost
• Raise tuition fee levels (if
they can)
• Look for new revenues
(international students
where differential fee, parttime students, further
education, non-degree
education, etc.)
• Compete more for research
funding
• Efforts to raise more
corporate funding where it
is small (but slow process)
• Postpone maintenance and
infrastructural costs,
including library costs
• Look for further
administrative efficiency
• Freeze hiring of new faculty
• More differentiated status
of new faculty
(teaching/research)
• Increase student/staff ratio
or decrease face-to-face
instructional time
Impact of the economic crisis
• Short term impact on access issues:
– Increase in participation in tertiary education
– Increase of the share of higher education expenditures in public
expenditures and GDP
– Costs will be a limiting factor in countries where there is a
significant share of household funding
– Possible rise in inequity
• Longer term impact:
– Risk aversion of students and family: less confidence in loans
and financial products and less investment in higher education?
– Slowdown or acceleration of internationalisation?
– Restructuring of higher education systems?
Intermediate conclusion
Before the crisis
After the crisis
• In most countries, the
budgetary impact of the
crisis was not significant
• Budgetary impact could
become more significant
(under very conservative
assumptions)
• Ageing could have
affected priorities, but no
strong evidence
• Public consolidation after
stimulus packages and
crisis-related social benefits
will make difficult for HE
budget to grow
Scenarios in the light of the crisis
Scenarios for higher education
systems
International
Market
Demand-driven
Administration
Supply-driven
National
4 scenarios
• Open networking
• Serving local communities
• New public responsibility
• Higher education, Inc.
Scenario 1: Open Networking
Drivers
• International cooperation &
harmonisation of systems
• Technology
• Ideal of open knowledge
Related developments
• Bologna process, international
academic partnerships and
consortia,
• Increasing computing power
and culture of openness
challenging traditional
intellectual property rights
Features
• Intensive networking among
institutions, scholars, students
(& industry)
• Modularisation of studies
under academics’ control
• International collaborative
research
• Strong hierarchy between
networks but quick spillovers
• Lifelong learning outside the
HE sector
Scenario 2: Serving local communities
Drivers
Features
• Backlash against globalisation
• More geo-strategic sensitivity
in research
• Cost efficiency
• (Re)focus on national and local
missions
• Public funding and control of
the academic profession
• Convergence between
universities and polytechnics
• Elite universities struggle to
stay more internationalised
• Less research, mainly on
humanities
• Big science relocated to
government sector (more
secretive and less
internationalised)
Related developments
• Anti-globalisation movements
• Crisis?
Scenario 3: New public responsibility
Drivers
• Pressure on public budget
(ageing, public debt, etc.)
• Diffusion of governance
structures based on new
public management
Related developments
• Autonomy given to HEIs
(sometimes legally
privatised)
• Debates on cost sharing
• Encouragement of
competition between HEIs
Features
• Mainly public funding but
autonomous institutions
controlled at arm’s length
(incentives + accountability)
• Mixed funding: new markets +
more tuition fees (income
contingent loans)
• Demand-driven system with
more marked division of
labour (specialisation but most
HEIs continue to do some
research)
• Research funds allocated
through domestic competitive
process (except for Europe)
Scenario 4: Higher education, Inc.
Drivers
Features
• Trade liberalisation in
education (GATS, bilateral)
• Global competition for
education and research services
• Public funding for noncommercially viable disciplines
exclusively
• Segmentation of the education
and research market
• Vocational higher education:
important share of the market
• Strong (international) division
of labour according to
competitive advantage
• Concentration of research and
worldwide competition for
funding
• English as main language of
study
Related developments
• Rise of trade in HE & inclusion
of education in trade
negotiations
• International competition for
students
• Increase of cross-border
funding of research
Scenarios for higher education
systems
International
Open Networking
Higher Education Inc.
Administration
Market
New Public
Responsibility
Serving Local
Communities
National
New publication:
Higher education to 2030
Forthcoming:
• Volume 2: technology
• Volume 3: Globalisation
• Volume 4: Scenarios
Stephan.Vincent-Lancrin@oecd.org
THANK YOU
www.oecd.org/edu/universityfutures
www.oecd.org/edu/innovation