With this volume, the author demonstrates how a collective goods approach to higher education research can alleviate problems of rising costs, declining resources, and growing concerns about undergraduate learning. In taking this approach, the author presents new tools of analysis—borrowed from cognitive science, economics, data analytics, education technology and measurement science—to investigate higher education’s place in society as a public or private good. By showing how these tools can be utilized to re-orient current research, this volume offers scholars and policy makers an argument for the large-scale use of scientific and economic approaches to higher education’s most pressing issues.

In this monograph, Lili Yang compares core ideas about the state, society, and higher education in two major world traditions. She explores the broad cultural and philosophical ideas underlying the public good of higher education in the two traditions, reveals their different social imaginaries, and works through five areas where higher education intersects with the individual, society, the state, and the world, intersections understood in contrasting ways in each tradition. The five key themes are: individual student development in higher education, equity in higher education, academic freedom and university autonomy, the resources and outcomes of higher education, and cross-border higher education activities and higher education's global outcomes. In exploring the similarities, Yang highlights important meeting points between the two world views, with the potential to contribute to the mutual understanding and cooperation across cultures.

There is a discernible and growing gap between the qualifications that a university degree certifies and the actual generic, 21st-century skills with which students graduate from higher education. By generic skills, it is meant literacy and critical thinking skills encompassing problem solving, analytic reasoning and communications competency.

Universities are not only economic engines but societal ones. This book interrogates the embeddedness of Higher Education (HE) systems in national social contracts, and discusses how their renegotiation is at play in the organisation of students’ access to universities. Structured around the central concept of the social contract, the growing recognition of the role of HE in its implementation, and regulations governing both individual and collective access, Higher Education in Societies: A Multiscale Perspective, explores the shifting mission of HE over the years from one thought to produce an elite to one of distributive justice by presenting research at the macro, meso and micro levels. In bringing together researchers from different countries, continents, and disciplines to study the same issue through a multiscale analysis, this book forms the starting line for further theoretical and methodological debate on the value of weaving together different approaches to the study of HE, including historical, comparative, sociological, organisational, institutional, quantitative, and qualitative.

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on a comprehensive set of central areas of study in higher education that encompasses the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. Each annual volume contains chapters on such diverse topics as research on college students and faculty, organization and administration, curriculum and instruction, policy, diversity issues, economics and finance, history and philosophy, community colleges, advances in research methodology and more. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.

In the era marked by globalization and its profound impacts on individuals, societies, states and markets, world-class universities need to position themselves in the forefront of seeking conceptual and practical solutions to daunting challenges by paying greater attention to their roles in serving local society and contributing to global common goods. Based on the findings of the Seventh International Conference on World-Class Universities, World-Class Universities: Towards a Global Common Good and Seeking National and Institutional Contributions provides updated insights and debates on how world-class universities will contribute to the global common good and balance their global, national and local roles in doing so.

Broad and imaginative, methodologically innovative and policy sharp, this book has much for government and university leaders, scholars of higher education and anyone interested in public policy.

In today’s globalized world, universities strive for excellence by aligning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and competing in research. Global universities aim to benefit future generations and promote cooperation through exchange programs and research collaborations. This book emphasizes long-term planning, research focus, financial management, online learning, community engagement, and sustainable development goals as integral aspects of global university success. It also demonstrates that universities should prioritize societal values over rankings and popularity. The book is divided into two parts. The first part delves into the global strategies for establishing successful universities worldwide, highlighted by the vice-chancellors and presidents from renowned universities of the world. The second part discusses pilot projects and experiences from Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), along with successful case studies contributing to top-tier university development. It highlights that collaboration among universities, research institutions, and industries as well as leadership, strategic decision-making, and aligning missions with globalization goals are crucial for success. For any university in the world, including young universities aiming to become one of the top global universities within a specific timeframe and improve its ranking locally as well as globally, this is the right book as it showcases worldwide expert opinions and case studies.

This book offers insights into how higher educational institutions and educators have responded to the immense challenges of managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Written by global experts in the field of higher education, it offers a multidimensional overview of the digital transformation, governance, and social justice issues within higher education institutions during the pandemic. It provides theoretical insights and conceptual analysis of the emerging trends in global higher education, the challenges, and possible ways to address them to shape more sustainable, qualitative, and socially equitable higher education for future generations. The book appeals to academics and students engaged in the education community.

Canada’s public higher education system is in trouble. The economic and social benefits of the Canadian university system are widely seen as a public good, which raises a pressing question: Why should we aspire to anything less than a great system? For that to happen, everything about the way universities currently operate, from the boardroom to the classroom, must change – but this kind of operational and public policy transformation will not be easy. Nothing Less than Great provides an expert analysis of the current state and challenges of Canada’s university system, looking for positive change by reclaiming what a university is meant to offer for society and for citizens. Harvey P. Weingarten begins with the fundamental question that all students must ask about higher education: Is it worth going to university? From there, he stresses the need for transparency about what universities do and what they accomplish, addresses the importance of modernizing curriculum to emphasize skills over content, and provides recommendations for reform. Exploring how universities might – and should – change to reclaim their central purpose for Canadians, Nothing Less than Great will be of interest to anyone who cares about the future of our country and the important role universities play in determining that future.