FROM ELITE TO MASS TO UNIVERSAL HIGHER EDUCATION: FROM DISTANCE TO OPEN EDUCATION

Larry Cooperman

doi:10.5944/ried.17.1.11576

Abstract

In 1970, Martin Trow, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, identified a transition “underway in every advanced society, from elite to mass higher education and subsequently to universal access.” This article adapts this framework of the historical and structural development of higher education as a phased process in which absolute and relative growth of university enrollment transforms the institutions of higher education and alters its functions. The transition to universal access may support economic development, social mobility and greater income equality, in turn buttressing even the institution of democracy. Arriving at those optimal social outcomes is not automatic, however, because of a variety of remaining issues: how universality of higher education translates to economic growth and social equality. The problem of the ‘next 1%,’ shorthand for the continued entrance of new social layers into higher education presents novel challenges that ‘access’ alone may not solve.

Highlights

In 1970, Martin Trow, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, identified a transition “underway in every advanced society – from elite to mass higher education and subsequently to universal access.” This paper adapts this framework of the historical and structural development of higher education as a phased process in which absolute and relative growth of university enrollment transforms the institutions of higher education and alters its functions
That immediacy and universality of access has not, does not, and will not provide for the vast expansion of graduation rates from postsecondary institutions that will be required in the future to fulfill three core missions of higher education: an educated citizenry, solution of core social problems, such as public health and sustainability, and preparation of an advanced global workforce
Trow argues that the Europeans have sought to adopt the core features of the U.S higher education because it is more suited to modern economies (Trow, 2006)

Summary

EXPANSION OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE PROMISE OF OPEN EDUCATION

In the transition from elite to mass systems of higher education, Trow made a number of points about both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the transformation of universities. This paper argues that these barriers are being or will be solved It is whether open education will become a successor to distance education in terms of providing higher education to ever larger numbers or whether its real promise is in achieving increased equality of opportunity through democratization of access. Cooperman From Elite to Mass to Universal Higher Education; from distance to open education rosy view of the actual percentage of the population moving through the tertiary pipeline It does capture the rate of growth and we can see some countries, like Brazil and Colombia, have achieved dramatic increases in the number of students enrolled in postsecondary studies.

OPEN EDUCATION AND FREE EDUCATION

THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL OUTCOMES

Part time

CONCLUSION

Findings

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PROFILE