Demands and policies for higher education

Abstract

Access to higher education has been growing dramatically across the world since World War II. This expansion is sometimes explained by the growing demand for high quality human capital in modern economies, but such a functionalist interpretation is insufficient. In this chapter, which provides an overview of key findings across the BRICS when it comes to the themes of supply and demand on the one hand and governmental policy on the other, the assumption that higher education is expanding to provide more qualified human capital to economic and technological development is challenged by the fact that most of the growth in enrolment takes place in the social sciences, the humanities, and the social professions, as well as in education, rather than in science, technology, and engineering.