Limits of Massification in Asia Pacific Six Sustainability Dilemmas John N. Hawkins, Deane Neubauer, Ka Ho Mok CCU Leadership Institute 2017

Background of Massification Martin Trow 1973 Rising share of global enrollments in Asia Pacific Continued expansion of HE in region Continued need to support former “elite” system of HE in region especially in research Is this sustainable? CCU Leadership Institute 2017

The Quality Dilemma Effort to create greater higher education capacity and their effect on quality Complex efforts to stipulate the nature of quality, what constitutes comparable measurements, rise of international quality assurance entities, mutual recognition agreements. Moving from the input side to the output side CCU Leadership Institute 2017

Differentiation Dilemma Elite systems gave way to expansion and differentiation often resulting in unarticulated new national systems Every political subunit wanted their own HEIs Emergence and growth of private sector complicated matters Mixed models of centralization, decentralization, organized and laissez fair approaches The attraction of the California Master Plan CCU Leadership Institute 2017

Financing Massified Systems Dilemma Major contradiction: providing high quality universal HE in context of decreasing public funding Obsession with global rankings has distorted funding landscape WCU quest intensifies funding dilemma Targeted funding e.g. STEM fields, adds to this dilemma What are some alternatives? CCU Leadership Institute 2017

Private/For Profit/Public HE Dilemma “Blurring” of boundaries between these models Public-Private cooperative enterprises Has the meaning of “public good” significantly changed? Are there irreducible roles for the State in HE? Do we need a new language to talk meaningfully about these models? CCU Leadership Institute 2017

Alternative Forms and the HE Dilemma Massification in some ways led to a search for alternatives Perhaps heralded by on-line education Targeted in some ways at learners for whom the issues of access and cost were critical MOOCs, OERs, and other forms of “disruptive” forces Quest for “innovation” that massification could not satisfy Are all these efforts “early indicators” of future of HE? CCU Leadership Institute 2017

Closing Remarks Massification has not developed in isolation Impacts more than educational development Access increases but……. Concerns for QA Overproduction of college graduates Underemployment of college graduates Debt for college graduates, and more We hope this seminar and the papers will look futuristically at where HE is headed beyond the massification phase CCU Leadership Institute 2017