Source: Times Higher Education via Academica | January 13, 2015
PSE participation rates should continue to climb as demand increases in countries such as China and India, according to Simon Marginson of the University College London Institute of Education. Marginson told attendees of a recent conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education that the global gross tertiary enrolment ratio (GTER) has climbed from 14% in 1992 to 32% in 2012, and that it will exceed 50% by 2025. Marginson said that growth over the next 10 years will be fueled not by state planning or the world economy, but by the rise of an aspirational middle class in developing countries. “Once a mass system is in place,” he argued, “popular demand is rising and the costs of non-participation is apparent, [so] the state is less crucial.” Marginson also said that a poor graduate job market will not act as a deterrent due to the “incoherent” relationship between higher education and the labour market.