Are university students taking less time to graduate?

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills

University is both a formative and enjoyable period in a young person’s life. Some who can afford to postpone their entry into the job market like it so much that they spend many years studying for a degree. Others have to repeat courses and semesters to succeed. Traditionally university programmes are designed as long and demanding trajectories, especially within Europe. In a paradigm of higher education, oriented towards the selection of the future elite, the length of study in itself works as a selection tool.

With massification of higher education from the 1970s onwards, as well as changes in the purpose and social functions of universities, the length of study became a policy issue. Each year of an individual’s study required  a significant public investment, therefore the time spent acquiring a degree became a budgetary concern. Moreover, time spent at colleges and universities was increasingly seen as an inappropriate mechanism of social selection, favouring those who had the resources to spend their young lives studying and punishing those unable to postpone earning a salary for too long. Additionally, demographic challenges increased the need to raise the activity rate in the population, and the need to recruit  young people for the job market sooner. Consequently, governments started to develop policies to shorten the length of study, shift some of the financial burden to students, and provide universities with the incentives for shorter study programmes.

By the time the Sorbonne and Bologna Declarations were discussed and approved, in 1998 and 1999 respectively, this policy challenge had become very real. In at least two of the signatory countries of the Sorbonne Declaration – Germany and Italy – studying until the age of 28 was the rule, not the exception. Ministers were very interested in the Anglo-Saxon qualification structure, because it would allow them to break up very long study programmes and stimulate students to acquire a first degree after only three or four years of study. Next to the objectives of having more comparable degree and credit systems and fostering mobility, the Bologna Declaration also intended to shorten study trajectories.

Data presented in the latest issue of the Education Indicators in Focus series allows us to evaluate the changes in the length of study careers, at least up until graduation with a first degree. Comparing OECD countries with available data, we learn that the median age of graduation decreased from 25.2 in 2005, to 25.0 in 2008 and down to 24.7 in 2011. This means that in 2011 the median student graduated half a year earlier than in 2005. The decrease differs across the age distribution: it is less significant for students graduating at a younger age, but it is very significant among students graduating at a higher age. The age of graduation at percentile 75 dropped from 28.7 in 2005 to 27.9 in 2011. Thus the share of students who took many years to graduate dropped significantly.

Students also entered universities at a slightly younger age, but the earlier age of graduation is predominantly determined by shortening the time spent acquiring a first degree. Between 2005 and 2011, the time taken to acquire a first degree fell by almost half a year, from 4.6 years to 4.2 years. Of course, many students pursue their studies beyond a first degree, but the combined effect of shorter study programmes and more effective study trajectories is quite significant.

These average changes conceal huge variations across countries. In some countries, the decrease in the median age of graduation between 2005 and 2011 is very marked. In Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Portugal and Slovenia, the median age fell by more than one year between 2005 and 2011. Despite the general trend, in some countries including Austria, Israel, Spain and Turkey, the median age of graduation actually increased during the same time frame. . Various institutional factors and participation patterns might explain these differences, but the socio-economic context should also be taken into account. For example, huge youth unemployment in Spain probably played a role in keeping students longer at university in 2011 compared to 2008.

The average decrease in the age of graduation, especially in countries where youth was less affected by the economic crisis and the job market still offered prospects for earning a living, might also be explained by composition effects. Students coming from less affluent families tend to have shorter studypaths, because they cannot afford to postpone earning a salary fortoo long. In several countries this is also noticeable in the increase of the number of students studying part-time. Flexible work-study arrangements allow students to combine study with work. When the economic crisis erupted in 2008, on average 19.6% of students studied part-time; in 2011 this number had  risen to 22.0%. The increase was very significant in again, Spain (from 12.2% to 27.1%), Germany (4.5% to 13.5%), Belgium (12.6% to 17.3%) and Canada (17.7% to 22.8%). Credit-systems and increased flexibility in study arrangements have provided more opportunities for part-time study and combined study-work trajectories. Of course, having more part-time students works against having a lower median age of graduation.

Today a first university degree – in most cases a bachelor’s degree – takes less time to acquire than in the past. Pressures on students to graduate faster have increased, both as a result of government policies, institutions’ actions to improve quality and efficiency and the general socio-economic context. University might be less leisurely, but on-campus life, learning soft skills such as making friends and forming social networks, is still an essential part of nurturing successful study.

Links:
Education Indicators in Focus, Issue No. 23, by Dirk Van Damme and Corinne Heckmann
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm
Chart source: © OECD

A skilful approach to employment

by Barbara Ischinger
Director for Education and Skills

July brought some good news and some bad news. The good news is that vocational and technical skills are flourishing and I watched young people with those skills competing to find who’s best in the world at the WorldSkills Competition held in Leipzig, Germany, earlier in the month. Over a thousand young people, representing 65 countries and regions across the world, were demonstrating their skills in everything from welding to web design. Korea topped the medal table (including gold for confectionery/pastry making with chocolate sculptures too impressive to eat) with Switzerland in second place. The level of technical expertise on show was astounding, but what impressed me more than anything was the poise and self-confidence along with the commitment to excellence and professionalism of all the competitors. And it wasn’t just for the competitors — it was a big festival of vocational skills for the general public. Anyone could try their hand at a new skill at a workbench or computer while young people could also seek advice on their choice of job and planning their career.

Now the bad news: OECD announced last week that unemployment in OECD countries is expected to  remain high throughout 2014, with young people and the low-skilled hit hardest . Unemployment can have long-lasting repercussions on young people.  Even when they do eventually get a job, they are likely to face an ongoing penalty in the labour market, earning significantly reduced wages over the course of their lifetime. And the psychological impacts can also be long lasting, as young people become discouraged, de-motivated and worried about their prospects for attaining economic independence in the future. And yet…in many OECD countries, there are thousands of jobs that remain unfilled, often requiring technical and vocational skills or providing the opportunity to learn them.

What these observations imply is that we have to do more to connect employers and prospective employees together. One way to do that is through vocational education and training (VET). Germany , Austria  and Switzerland have a strong VET tradition. But many OECD countries have not developed their VET systems as extensively as they might or their VET system is not responding effectively to the needs of employers. Indeed, employer representatives’ top priority for vet reform is to encourage closer partnership with employers . Another key obstacle to overcome is that many people see VET as only a second-best option for those who are not suited to academic education, so more able students are reluctant to pursue this path towards a career or they may even be actively dissuaded from doing so.

This must change. One way we can promote such a change is by communicating to students and parents alike that a high-quality VET education can be the ticket into the labour market and a good career path, even during an economic downturn. As this year’s Education at a Glance shows, across the OECD, individuals with a vocationally-oriented secondary education are more likely to be employed (76%) than those with a general upper secondary education (70%); they are also less likely to be unemployed.  Another way to encourage students to consider vocational training is by making the pathways between general and vocational education more flexible, so that at any point a student in vocational education can transfer to an academic programme and vice versa, without finding all their options closed off.  And of course, all VET programmes need to focus providing quality skills that are relevant in the labour market – equipping young people not just for their first job but for their longer-term employability. 

On 8 October, the OECD will release the first results from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) . The first-of-its-kind survey will give us a direct assessment of the literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills people have, together with information on the skills they use at home, in the workplace and in their communities and a great deal of background information, including their education pathways, qualifications and labour market experience. The survey results will provide countries with new evidence about the actual skill level and distribution of their 16-65 year olds as well as insights into where mismatches between skills supply and demand lie. These results will provide OECD and countries with new evidence we can use formulate better policies to help people to develop their skills, offer them to the labour market, and ultimately use them productively.

Yes, it’s going to be another tough year for a lot of people in OECD countries, particularly young people; but we must all work together – using our own unique set of skills – to turn the bad news into an opportunity to create something much better.

Links:
OECD work on skills
OECD Skills Strategy
OECD work on Vocational Education and Training
Skills Beyond School Report: United States
View Dr Barbara Ischinger’s keynote speech on Better Skills, Better Lives at the International Skills Standards Organisation conference “Tackling the Global Talent Gap”
Photo credit: WorldSkills Leipzig 2013

Education: The best protection against an economic crisis

by Dirk Van Damme
Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills

The insight that education is valuable both to individuals and to countries is not new. Using continuously improving data and statistical tools, we have come to understand and appreciate the magnitude of education’s impact on employment, income, health and life opportunities in general. From a purely economic point of view, private returns on investment are well beyond 10% per year, and public returns are only slightly below that figure. Fears that increasing participation and greater numbers of graduates – resulting in ever-increasing numbers of highly qualified people in the work force – would result in some kind of inflation, in diminishing returns and burgeoning graduate unemployment could not be confirmed by the data.

When the financial crisis erupted in 2007-08, rapidly turning into a global economic recession and a fiscal crisis in the Euro-zone and other countries, it was very difficult to predict its impact on education. Data for the years 2008 and 2009 showed that in the first years of the crisis, the impact on education remained limited and was confined to countries in severe crisis, such as Ireland, Iceland and Greece. Education is generally protected from shocks to the economic system because of its intrinsic slow pace of change. Individuals and families did not drastically alter their patterns of participation in education; and in the first years of the crisis, governments used stimulus packages and deficit spending to try to soften the blow, leaving education budgets more or less untouched. But we know that things started to change dramatically from 2010 onwards, when unemployment – especially among youth – climbed steeply and governments turned into austerity mode.

Education at a Glance 2013, the OECD’s reference on education indicators and statistics, for the first time provides a comprehensive set of data covering the years 2010 and 2011. The data convey a consistent, but also somewhat surprising picture. A great deal of the economic and social hardship caused by the crisis fell chiefly on less-educated individuals. The unemployment gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early widened during the crisis. On average across OECD countries, 5% of those with a tertiary education were unemployed, against 13% of those without an upper secondary education. Between 2008 and 2011 the unemployment rate for the latter group increased by 4%, while it rose by only 1.5% among the highly educated. The earnings gap widened as well: the average difference in earnings between highly educated and low-educated individuals grew from 75 percentage points to 90 percentage points between 2008 and 2011.

The message is clear: it is a person’s education that determines whether he or she will be extremely or only moderately exposed to the economic and social risks in times of crisis. Those without a minimal level of education, and certainly those of them without a stable job, find themselves without any shelter from the storm. Meanwhile, the relative returns on higher education increase. Some might argue that this is largely due to structural changes in the labour market: highly educated people taking the jobs of the middle-educated individuals, who, in turn, drive low-educated workers into unemployment. The earnings data do not seem to confirm this hypothesis: if tertiary-educated individuals were to take medium-skilled jobs en masse, their relative wage premium would not have increased as much as it did. In addition, the wage premium increases with age, which suggests that the higher level of skills among tertiary-educated workers is compensated in their salaries. In times of crisis and tough competition in the labour market, employers would certainly not be willing to value skills as much as they seem to do if there was no good reason to.

In short, the value of education increases during an economic crisis. Those who lack education, stand to lose a lot; those who have invested in it, can still reap its benefits.

Links:
For more information, and to download a copy of the book, visit the Education at a Glance website at: www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm

Browse and share the book

Getting internationalisation right

by Andreas Schleicher
Deputy Director for Education and Skills, Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD's Secretary General

The exceptional turnout at the 2013 OECD/Japan Seminar  in Tokyo this week, where over 300 participants from over 20 countries discussed global strategies for higher education, shows that the seminar had exactly the right agenda at exactly the right time. I asked myself how many people would have turned up had this seminar been held five years ago; or whether five years ago, Japan would have ventured to take the lead on this theme.

At long last higher education has become a global enterprise, with a rapidly growing number of students who are going global, with educational content going global, and with providers of higher education going global.

And as many speakers at the seminar pointed out, where those people go, where that content goes, and where those institutions go has huge economic and social consequences, for individuals, for institutions and for the economic and social well-being of nations.

That's why getting internationalisation right matters so much. And why, in turn, global rankings of universities have become so popular – no matter what we think about those rankings. I am afraid the only choice that the international higher education community has is to either do those rankings well, or to have the media doing them poorly.

A country like Japan stands at an historically unprecedented point, in which supply and demand for university education are, for the first time, broadly in balance, and in which consumer choice, grounded in high-quality information, could be a powerful force in steering universities towards closer engagement with the development of abilities suited to professional life. But that's only going to work if that information is available.

At the OECD, we are making significant investments in this area, with our aim of developing a direct  Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). Surely, such assessments will tell us a lot more about the quality and competitiveness of world-class universities than past reputation or the volume of resources that are being invested can ever do.  However, while I have no doubt that the concentration of global talent and favourable governance are key to the success of world-class universities, I need to be convinced that abundance of resources is equally important. We had that same hypothesis in school education, where we used spending per student as a proxy for quality, until  PISA  showed with great clarity that the world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated systems and poor and badly educated ones. Indeed, one of the greatest results we should see from outcome-based comparisons of higher education institutions will be significant gains in effectiveness and efficiency.

But even instruments such as AHELO are just one piece of the bigger puzzle. Prof. Judith Eaton explained how global trends are changing demand for and the dynamics of quality assurance in higher education. As she noted, everywhere, there is expansion of government attention to quality: there is pressure to increase access with limited financing and international competitiveness matters more than ever. There is growing interest in market or industrial models of higher education, with the centre of attention shifting from intellectual development to economic development, even if I very much hope that universities will continue to question that trend, as it could be hollowing out the very mission of universities. There is also scepticism about the adequacy of quality assurance for public accountability, illustrated by diminished public confidence and perhaps diminished trust. As Judith put it, there was a time where the public turned to universities to make judgements on quality. Now we see the public wanting to make judgements about the quality of universities, demanding greater transparency and better data on outcomes. And there is disruptive innovation, there is no need to go to college to study any more, there is no need to go to college to get a degree, there is no need to go to college to meet with a professor, and there is no need to go to another country to pursue international studies.

Does the globalisation of higher education imply that the space for national policy intervention is getting smaller, as we have seen in the economic or financial sectors? As Prof. Simon Marginson explained, education and national research systems are still part of governments’ nation-building projects, including strategies for enhancing global competitiveness. Institutions remain partly dependent on national funding, and remain shaped by regulation and by national politics. Prof. Steve Egan pointed out that no one has yet gone for wholesale commercialisation of research universities. But globalisation changes the scope for government action, expanding it in some ways and contracting it in others.

If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that we don't have a real alternative to internationalisation. We just can’t afford to hold on to the past, but we do need to be active in defining the future we desire.

Links:
OECD/Japan Seminar: “Global Strategies for Higher Education－Global Trends and Rethinking the Role of Government”
Approaches to Internationalisation and Their Implications for Strategic Management and Institutional Practice: A Guide for Higher Education Institutions
OECD work on Higher Education and Adult Learning
Follow Andreas Schleicher on twitter: @SchleicherEDU
Photo credit: Globe with diploma /Shutterstock

What are the social benefits of education?

Elisabeth Villoutreix
Communications Officer, Directorate for Education

The link between education and social benefits has long been recognised, as far back as Ancient Greece when Aristotle and Plato pointed out that education is central to the well-being of society. More recently, in the past few decades, research has supported this conventional wisdom, revealing that education not only enables individuals to perform better in the labour market, but also helps to improve their overall health, promote active citizenship and contain violence.

So how can education predict social outcomes such as life expectancy, civic engagement and general life satisfaction?

The latest issue of Education Indicators in Focus seeks to answer this question by comparing the social benefits of education in selected OECD countries.

Data show that life expectancy is strongly associated with education. On average, among 15 OECD countries with available data, a 30-year-old tertiary-educated man can expect to live eight years longer than a 30-year-old man who has not completed upper secondary education.

Data also show that adults who have attained higher levels of education are generally more likely than those with lower levels of educational attainment to report stronger civic engagement, in terms of voting, volunteering, political interest, and interpersonal trust.

Apart from raising  income levels, education has the potential to help individuals develop skills, improve  social status and gain access to networks that could lead to enhanced social outcomes.  By fully recognising the power of education, policy makers could better address diverse societal challenges.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators 
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012 
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure
Chart Note: e figures describe the differences in the expected years of life remaining at age 30 across education levels.
1. Year of reference 2009.
2. Year of reference 2005.
3. Year of reference 2006.
4. Year of reference 2008.
5. Year of reference 2007-10.
6. e OECD average is the average for those countries shown in the chart.
Countries are ranked in descending order of the difference in life expectancy among men at age 30.
Chart source: Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators, Indicator A11 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012) 

Women leaders can break the mould

Indira Samarasekera, President of the University of Alberta  in Canada, was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) Conference, held at OECD headquarters in Paris this past September. Marilyn Achiron, Editor at the OECD’s Education Directorate, spoke with her about a variety of subjects:

Marilyn Achiron: What unique talents do women have as school leaders, and how can we achieve gender equality in school leadership positions?
Indira Samarasekera: At the risk of overgeneralising, women tend to network more, and perhaps listen more, to a variety of stakeholders. Men have tended to have to follow the mould of someone before them; but women can break the mould. That’s the advantage of women leaders.
Gender equality in school leadership has often been difficult to achieve because of the challenges of women having children. The question is: How do you support that? It requires that people in the university be thoughtful and mindful. There were leaders in my university who sought me out and put me in leadership positions, heads of committees who helped to put me where I am today. They went out of their way to find people like me—I was only an assistant professor, for goodness sake. I think gender equality can be achieved without overnight social change, but you need thoughtful men and women leaders.

MA: The latest edition of Education at a Glance highlights the fact that young women are now more likely than young men to graduate from upper secondary school. What is your reaction to that finding?
IS:  I worry about it. For the longest time we worried about the fact that there weren’t enough women; now we’re worried that we’re losing young men. The potential social consequences of that are huge. In a society where innovation and higher education provide access to high-wage jobs, we have huge numbers of young men who will be left behind. We need gender parity for all those who need education. Young men develop later; as a result, they are not as prepared to compete on university entrance exams as young women are. But they catch up quickly later. We have to consider high school grades with a pinch of salt. We have to find a way, without diluting the quality of education, to transfer young men to university, maybe after two years in a community college. Community colleges can be a kind of bridge between high school and higher education. Two years can make a big difference.

MA: In your keynote address, you spoke passionately against university rankings.
IS:  Rankings are absolutely detrimental, and it’s very questionable what value they add to society. They don’t recognise teaching, they foster homogenisation, there are no assessments of publications and the effect of research on society, they completely discount valuable research. In fact, these rankings promote the “caste culture” in science. They want everyone to be Harvard, but even Harvard is having trouble being Harvard because they can’t afford it anymore. To their credit, though, rankings have focused the spotlight on high-quality universities. But those who are doing the rankings are not accountable to anyone; they’re there to make money.

Links:
General Conference 2012: "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education"
OECD Skills Strategy
Education at a Glance: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012
Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org
See related blog post: Welcome to my world. Won’t you come on in? by Valérie Lafon
Photo credit: ©OECD

Welcome to my world. Won’t you come on in?

by Valérie Lafon
Analyst - Institutional Management in Higher Education

As a young mother, in relation to my children’s age, and being the ripe old age of 40, I am discovering the daily ritual of education.

Education, we believe, will make our children’s dreams real, open the door to knowledge and experiences, help them grow, and ultimately give them the tools to live a happy, well-rounded life with a fulfilling career.

Filled with goodwill, well-informed thanks to working at the OECD and steeped in the notion that higher education will provide my children with the best and most appropriate skills, I found myself, like many other parents, lost in this new environment.

Looking at all of these issues, different worlds having different rules with goals at times at odds with each other and difficult to reconcile. Five separate worlds…

The world of learning

A plethora of various stakeholders are saturating the media and students are fighting to be heard. Perhaps so many different players makes it difficult to figure out who wants what.

• How do these students see their future? What do they expect? What do they want?
• How to bring their aspirations into the debate?

The world of knowledge 

Mass higher education affects all countries and academic systems. Participation, role, impact, and responsability of higher education institutions have taken on greater significance and will continue to do so.

• How can institutions maintain and improve quality despite limited resources?
• Which institutional strategies are more effective to improve students’ learning experience and keep them engaged and motivated?
• How to help students, parents and governments make informed choices based on information that has been certified, verified and accepted internationally?

The world of public goods

Developed economies rely on skilled labour to drive productivity and economic growth as well as to support social cohesion. Besides, the economic benefit of higher education is good for individuals as well as society.

• How can governments, or should governments, steer higher education?
• How to hold on to the public good while faced with the commodification of higher education?
• How to reconcile individual aspirations, the public good and the economic reality?

The world of economics

As skills are a country’s future, each and every government should be thinking about how to manage these skills strategically. Erasing the “bright red dividing line” between education and work will require, among many other things, greater collaboration between education systems and industry.

• How to recreate the link between higher education and the job market?
• What skills does the knowledge economy need most and how to strike the balance between specific skills and generic skills?

Planet Earth

Lastly comes globalisation, the planet, English as the dominant language, the internet, facebook, twitter, McDonalds, the financial crisis and, within the higher education market, we can add rankings and student mobility. To be free to make the right choices, we need to understand the balance of power, and then the landscape becomes even more complex!

Sometimes at night, after the children have gone to bed, I think about the different colours of all these different worlds. How do we bring these worlds together and build bridges rather than remain in silos? The OECD is organising a conference in Paris from 17 to 19 September that will examine the issues around mass higher education. Governments, universities, students and the private sector will discuss the present and the future of higher education

I will be wearing two hats: that of a parent, and that of an OECD analyst. Will you join me?

Follow the Conference live on twitter @OECD_Edu and @OECDLive (#OECDIMHE)

Links:
General Conference 2012: "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education"
OECD Skills Strategy
Education at a Glance: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012
Visit our interactive portal on skills: http://skills.oecd.org
Photo credit: World globes / Shutterstock

Higher education: a good long-term investment?

by J.D. LaRock

Senior Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

As any student can attest, pursuing a higher education requires an investment in time, effort – and in a number of OECD countries, significant financial resources.  But the economic costs of higher education go beyond tuition fees.  Because people with higher education tend to have higher earnings, they’re likely to pay more in income taxes and social welfare contributions.  There’s also the “opportunity cost” of foregone earnings when people enter university instead of the labour market.

Given these long-term economic costs, do the long-term economic benefits of having a higher education make it worthwhile?  As the latest issue of the OECD’s brief series Education Indicators in Focus details, analyses based on the most recent year of available data – 2007 for most countries – suggest that the return on investment is very good.

For example, the long-term economic advantage of having a tertiary degree instead of an upper secondary degree, minus the associated costs, is over USD 175 000 for a man and just over USD 110 000 for a woman, on average across OECD countries. The payoff is particularly strong for men in Italy, Korea, Portugal and the United States, where obtaining a higher education degree generates a long-term benefit of more than  USD 300 000 for the average man, compared to a man with an upper secondary education only.

Meanwhile, the advantage for women is strongest in Ireland, Korea, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, where having a tertiary education yields an average long-term benefit of USD 150 000 or more, compared to a woman with an upper secondary education.

As the chart above shows, OECD analyses also find that the long-term payoff on the amount of taxpayer funds used to support people in higher education generates a strong return.  Taxpayer costs include funds used to lower the direct costs of higher education to individuals, as well as support for grant and loan programs.  They also include indirect costs, such as foregone tax revenues and social contributions to the government while people are in university.

On average, OECD countries directly invest more than USD 30 000 in public sector funds to support an individual pursuing higher education.  However, they’ll recoup this investment – and then some – through greater tax revenues from these higher-educated people, as well as savings from the lower level of social transfers these people typically receive.

On average, OECD countries will receive a net return of USD 91 000 on the public costs to support a man in tertiary education – more than three times the amount of the public investment. In Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia and the United States, this return is especially high, topping USD 150 000.  The net return on the public costs to support a woman in higher education is somewhat lower – USD 55 000, on average – but are still positive in almost every OECD country.

Of course, the fallout from the global economic crisis will likely change this cost-benefit equation – but whether it will make it better or worse overall is unclear. For example, the higher unemployment rates spurred by the crisis are likely to have reduced the opportunity cost of foregoing work in order to attend university.  However, they also may have reduced some of the benefits of having a higher education, because unemployment rates rose among tertiary-educated people during the crisis.

Likewise, the continued global expansion of higher education could have different effects.  As the supply of highly-educated individuals grows, the relative economic benefits of having a tertiary education may go down over time.  However, if economies continue to become more knowledge-based – increasing the demand for highly-educated people even more – the economic benefits of higher education could continue to expand.

For more information

On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure
See also: IMHE General Conference 2012 "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education", Paris, 17-19 September 2012


Chart Source: Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, Indicator A9 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011).
Note: Data for Australia, Belgium and Turkey refer to 2005. Data for Italy, the Netherlands, Poland,
Portugal and the United Kingdom refer to 2006. All other data refer to 2007.
Countries are ranked in descending order of the net present value.

What will the global talent pool look like in 2020?

by Pedro Garcia de León, Corinne Heckmann, and Gara Rojas González 
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

The “global talent pool” can be described in a lot of different ways.  But in an era in which having a higher (tertiary) education is increasingly a minimum requirement for successful entry into the labour force, one way to quantify it is to look at the number of people around the world who are obtaining a higher education degree.

As the latest issue of the OECD’s series Education Indicators in Focus details, by that measure, the global talent pool is exploding across OECD and G20 countries. What’s more, it’s likely to grow far larger by the year 2020.

In the last decade alone, the number of younger adults with higher education degrees has grown at a remarkably fast clip. This is particularly true for non-OECD G20 countries like Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, where the number of 25-34 year-olds with a higher education degree increased from 39 million in 2000 to an estimated 64 million in 2010. By contrast, the number of younger adults with higher education degrees in OECD countries increased from 51 million to an estimated 66 million during the same period.

In addition, the rapid expansion of higher education in non-OECD G20 countries has significantly altered the distribution of the talent pool among countries. A decade ago, one in six 25-34 year-olds with a higher education degree was from the United States, and a similar proportion was from China. Twelve percent came from the Russian Federation, and about 10% each were from Japan and India. But by 2010, China was at the head of the pack, according to OECD estimates, accounting for 18% of 25-34 year-olds with a tertiary education.  The United States followed with 14%, the Russian Federation and India each had 11%, and Japan had 7%. 

These trends are likely to intensify further in the years ahead. According to OECD projections, there will be more than 200 million 25-34 year-olds with higher education degrees across all OECD and G20 countries by the year 2020 – and 40% of them will be from China and India alone. By contrast, the United States and the European Union countries are expected to account for just over a quarter of young people with tertiary degrees in OECD and G20 countries. 

In fact, these figures may underestimate the future growth of the global talent pool, because a number of countries – notably China, the European Union countries, and the U.S. – are pursuing initiatives to increase higher education attainment rates even further. 

The explosive growth of the  talent pool raises a key question: With all of these highly-educated people emerging around the world, will the global labour market be able to absorb the increased supply?  
Evidence from science and technology occupations – key “knowledge economy” jobs – suggests that it can. Between 1998 and 2008, employment in science and technology occupations increased at a faster rate than total employment in all OECD and G20 countries with available data. The average annual growth rate was uniformly positive, ranging from 0.3% in China to 5.9% in Iceland. 

This consistently upward trend signals that the demand for employees in this knowledge economy sector hasn’t reached its ceiling. Applied to the overall labour market, the implication is that individuals from increasingly better-educated populations will continue to have good employment outcomes, as long as national economies continue to become more knowledge-based.  

As such, countries may be well-advised to pursue efforts to build their knowledge economies, in order to avoid skills mismatches and lower returns on education among their higher-educated populations in the future.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus: www.oecd.org/education/indicators 
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators: www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011 
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure (link)
See also: IMHE General Conference 2012 "Attaining and Sustaining Mass Higher Education", Paris, 17-19 September 2012
Chart source: OECD Database, UNESCO and National Statistics websites for Argentina,
China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Women’s outcomes in education and employment: strong gains, but more to do

by Éric Charbonnier and Corinne Heckmann
Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

There’s no denying it: when it comes to education and employment, women are on a roll, all over the world.  As described in the latest issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus, the achievement gap between boys and girls has narrowed so much at lower levels of education that the focus of concern is now on the underachievement of boys.  On the 2009 PISA reading assessment, for example, 15-year-old girls outperformed boys in every OECD country, on average by 39 points – the equivalent of one year of school.

Young women are also making strong progress in higher education in OECD countries.  In 2000, 51% percent of women could be expected to enter a university-level programme at some point in their lives; today, the number is 66%.  In fact, the proportion of women who hold a university-level qualification now equals or exceeds that of men in 29 of the 32 OECD countries for which data are comparable. This figure is below 50% only in China, Japan, Korea and Turkey.

At the same time, still more can be done to improve outcomes for girls and young women in the classroom.  In mathematics, for example, 15-year-old boys tend to perform slightly better than girls in most countries, while science performance is more variable.  And in higher education, women remain under-represented at the most advanced levels.  Across all OECD countries, less than half of advanced research qualifications such as doctorates were awarded to women in 2009.  In Japan and Korea, the figure is only around 30%.  This pattern holds in all countries except Brazil, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal and the United States.

In addition, some fields of study are still branded as “masculine” or “feminine”. In 2009, more than 70% of higher education students in the field of education were women, and an average of 75% of the degrees in the fields of health and welfare also went to women. By contrast, in most countries, fewer than 30% of all graduates in the fields of engineering, manufacturing and construction were women.

Nonetheless, women’s strides in education have led to improved labour market outcomes for women overall. For instance, the gender gap in employment narrowed from 25 percentage points in 2000 to 21 percentage points in 2009 among those without an upper secondary qualification, and from 19 percentage points in 2000 to 15 percentage points in 2009 among those with an upper secondary qualification. And it’s narrower still among those with a higher education qualification, shrinking from 11 percentage points in 2000 to 9 percentage points in 2009.

Increasingly, OECD countries are doing more to address gender gaps – both in education and employment.  For example, in the Czech Republic, Germany and the Slovak Republic, the proportion of women graduating with science degrees grew by more than 10 percentage points between 2000 and 2009.  As a result, these countries are now closer to the OECD average of 40% -- a figure that has remained stable over the past decade. In 2000, the European Union announced a goal to increase the number of university graduates in mathematics, science and technology by at least 15% by 2010, and to reduce the gender imbalance in these subjects. So far, however, progress toward this goal has been marginal.

On the employment side, the Nordic countries, Germany and Portugal have instituted policies allowing fathers to receive parental leave and income support so their spouses can remain in the workforce.  In Iceland, Norway and Spain, some firms are required to have at least 40% of their boardroom seats assigned to women. Meanwhile, other companies, such as Deutsche Telekom, have introduced voluntary quotas for women in management and family-friendly practices such as flex-times and tele-working.

The bottom line is clear: while girls and women have made strong gains, it’s time to finish the job.  To promote gender equality even further, policymakers should be encouraged to pursue policies to increase mathematics and science performance among girls – as well as reading achievement among boys.  Meanwhile, initiatives to break down gender stereotypes in fields of study and progressive corporate policies can do more to increase women’s employment opportunities.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus
OECD Gender Initiative
www.oecd.org/gender/equality
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators
www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure
Chart source: OECD Education Database

Increasing higher education access: one goal, many approaches

by J.D. LaRock
Senior Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education

Few would dispute that having a higher education is more important than ever to help people build positive economic futures and strengthen the knowledge economies of countries. Yet as the second issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus explains, OECD countries have adopted dramatically different strategies for increasing higher education access – both in terms of how higher education is financed, and in the level of financial support they provide to individuals seeking a degree.

For example, in countries with more progressive tax structures, such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, students pay low or no tuition fees and have access to generous public subsidies for higher education. Tuition fees are much higher in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States, but students in these countries also have access to significant financial support.

Before recent reforms in Japan and in Korea, students paid comparatively high tuition fees, but had relatively low access to public subsidies. Meanwhile, in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain and Mexico, students pay little or nothing for higher education, but have limited access to financial aid.

At a time when most OECD countries are experiencing surges in higher education enrolments – but also face significant budget constraints – which model stands a better chance of promoting higher education access and positive outcomes for students in the most equitable way? As it turns out, there’s something to be learned from several of them.

As detailed in the OECD’s thematic review of higher education, charging a moderate level of tuition fees – while simultaneously giving students opportunities to benefit from comprehensive financial aid systems – is an effective way for countries to increase access to higher education, stretch limited public funds, and promote equity by acknowledging the significant private returns that students receive from higher education.

In particular, access to robust financial aid seems to be the key.  For example, countries with especially well-developed student support systems – like Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States – all have above-average university entry rates, even though they also have comparatively high tuition fees.

At the same time, the type of financial aid countries offer is also critical. The OECD’s review suggests that financial aid systems that couple means-tested grants and loans that have income-contingent repayments not only promote access and equity at the front end of higher education, but also lead to better outcomes for students at the back end. Australia and New Zealand have used this approach to mitigate the impact of high tuition fees, encourage disadvantaged students to enter higher education, and reduce the risks of high student loan indebtedness. Other OECD countries that use this strategy include Chile, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Increasingly, countries are adjusting their higher education financing and support systems in other ways as well. For example, more countries have raised tuition fees for international students in recent years, in part to shore up the finances of their higher education systems. At least 14 OECD member and partner countries differentiate tuition fees among fields of study to account for the higher cost of operating some academic programmes.  Some countries like Australia have even attempted to link higher education charges to labour-market opportunities by lowering tuition fees for fields with skills shortages.

In an era of booming enrolments and tightening belts, it won’t be surprising if still more changes are on the horizon.

For more information
On this topic, visit:
Education Indicators in Focus
On the OECD’s education indicators, visit:
Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators  www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011
On the OECD’s Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, visit:
INES Programme overview brochure

Related blog post:
Higher education: an insurance policy against global downturns

Chart excludes OECD countries for which specific data on public subsidies is not available.
Source: Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, Indicator B5 (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2011).