Global Vertical Stratification of Institutions and the Academic Profession: The Role of Research in Future High Participation Environments

Abstract

In this chapter, I link two themes in the context of participation in higher education: vertical stratification of national systems and the changing academic profession. The perspective used is a longer-term scenario (20–30 years), the trends are examined as they emerge from the data (Elsevier; OECD; SciVal; Scopus), and from the theorizations of university governance, funding, and politics of higher education. The chapter shows that higher education may be expected to be sharply divided into two contrasting segments, both globally and intra-nationally, with only a limited number (say, 1000 or 3–5%) of universities truly combining teaching and research missions. Globally, in the overwhelming majority of institutions, academic work will mean relatively unexciting teaching of the masses of nontraditional students, higher workloads, and curricula much more closely related to the labor market needs than today. In other words, higher education, as a public good, will be provided to the masses of students at a relatively low cost by the masses of academics. However, the positional value of higher education credentials may be lower than currently expected, as in high participation systems, they will become widely available. Access to higher education will probably be fully open in general, but still highly restricted in the case of selected top institutions, with no changes from the current selectivity patterns. In this scenario, common social and economic returns from higher education will be high, but individual returns will diminish.