Mass Higher Education and the Need for New Responses

Three major challenges for higher education are in the centre of the public debate in Europe. First, expansion of higher education: tertiary education enrolment surpassed 50 percent in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe, and graduation quotas are above 50, 40 and 30 percent respectively. The expansion triggered feelings of loss exclusiveness, increased pressure for efficiency and quality and stimulated reconsiderations of the modes of diversity in higher education. Second, the spread of new technologies seems to lead not only to a more rapid turnover of knowledge, but also to new learning behaviour of students, a shift of the role of academics towards advisory activities. It also might reinforce standardisation of knowledge, steeper packing order of institutions and a cost explosion. Third, the period of managerial experimentation in higher education might be substituted by a process of sorting out the strengths and limitations of an increased managerial approach in higher education.