Abstract
Faced with economic constraints, the governments of Western industrial countries are subjecting higher education to sharper scrutiny, and are looking for new guides to difficult policy choices. In many countries, the expectations of higher education held by specific groups have come to carry greater weight in policy-making as a proxy for analysis of national needs. This article draws on evidence from Austria, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and West Germany to review the changing expectations of the major groups affected by higher education - the increasingly influential employers of graduates, the consumers of research, young people and their families, “new” groups such as women and adult students, and others; compares these expectations with broader political interpretations of the needs of the community - for equality, investment and other functions; and describes the responses of government and of institutions of higher education.
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An earlier version of this article was commissioned by OECD to provide a “synthesis” of a Conference on Expectations of Higher Education, held at Hatfield Polytechnic in January 1982, organised by the UK Department of Education and Science for an OECD/CERI programme on “Innovations in Higher Education.” My thanks are due to all the participants in that conference, and especially to the authors of papers, some of whose contributions are quoted extensively in this article.
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Fulton, O. Needs, expectations and responses: New pressures on higher education. High Educ 13, 193–223 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00129491
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00129491