Analysis of Higher Education

    本文从7个方面介绍了higer education。分别从higer education的重要性以及学费、教育方式等进行介绍分析。反映供应商响应成人高等教育需求的入口是符合市场需求。营利性高等教育的出现会导致分化加剧高等教育的同时带来传统高等教育的变化。

1. Importance of higher education

Over the last ten years, economists dealing with higher education have shifted their emphasis from the study of "rates of return" and optimum size of the social investment in education to the analysis of its distribution among different social groups. In the process, they have re-examined the role of education in determining positions in the labor hierarchy and have come to question some of their earlier measures of the economic productivity of higher education. Their studies of distribution have brought them close to areas traditionally cultivated by sociologists. Their primary contribution, however, is in the comparison of alternative modes of financing higher education with reference to stated objectives of equity or equal opportunities.
Higher education get to the social center by the ways that firstly it should be recognized by the community and priority should be given to the development of higher education in terms of strategic position; secondly it must maintain its original "quality", adhere to the principle of unity of adaptation and transcendence as to promote the coordinative development of higher education and society; thirdly it must be based on the reality of socioeconomic development and insist on pluralistic development in order to meet the overall demand of the society for knowledge; fourthly it must have the systems and mechanisms with a comprehensive and continuously differentiated and integrated function to form the resultant force it makes for society center.
In essence, higher education is a business that produces products, that is, cultivates talents to our society. But education is often regarded as one of the grandest cause in the world. Higher education has its noble implication and is more decent and humane in the purpose it serves. A college or university usually takes social responsibility into account.

2. Nature of a university
Asymmetry of information is one of higher education’s natures. Given the asymmetries of information, it may be impossible to draw up a contrast that guarantees that the expected quality in all its dimensions will be provided. People investing in human capital through a purchase of higher education don’t know what they are buying –and won’t and can’t know what they have brought until it is far too late to do anything about it. It is more like an uncertain investment often made in large part by a parent.
One factor that is obscure by the assumption of perfect information is that a firm that depends on its own customers to supply an important input to production will care very much about who those customers are and how well-equipped they are with the input that matters. If they can, the firm will try to control who its customers are, leading to our discussion of enrollment. A college that accepts all applicants could not be selective and would not be able to increase student quality through demand expansion. Since donative resources available to a private college or university are effectively fixed in the short term, the level of enrollment determines how broadly those resource will be spread.

3. Analysis of recent trends in college prices
The competition function in a hierarchical market, like higher education market, results in a rising trends in college prices. The price that students pay for public education has covered a pretty small part of costs yet their subsidies has covered so large a part so that even a small percentage reduction in public support has meant a large percentage increase in tuition. Higher tuition is always needed to keep track of the inflated daily expense in university.
The rising real cost of college in the midst of growing competition has become a source of considerable angst for parents, university administrators and public policy analysts who are concerned that need-blind admission goals are being sacrificed in favor of strategic enrollment management policies designed to attract the best and the brightest. Thus, the rapidly rising cost of college begs the question of whether universities compete on price as opposed to some other metric such as reputation or resources (e.g., McPherson and Schapiro, 1998).

4. The emergence and influence of for-profit sector
Globalization and the revolution in technological communication are major forces of change in higher education. This environment, when coupled with the needs of adult learners and the rising cost of tuition at traditional colleges and universities, has stimulated the emergence of for-profit higher education. As traditional, especially public, higher education finds its way within the “education business”. Society expects public higher education to advance social justice through increased access for underrepresented groups, provide service to communities, enhance economic development through training and applied research, and advance knowledge for the social, economic, culture and scientific benefit of society. The means by which it fulfills this mission may be informed in part by the for-profit sector. This sector has demonstrated cost-efficient and consumer-oriented ways of developing and delivering training programs. For-profit institutions will increasingly force non-profit colleges to examines their programs and become more competitive. Some college may need to change their roles, and have a different orientation toward their students as customers.
Focusing on 2-year colleges, Grubb (1996) emphasizes the centrality of “mid-skilled” labor to the US economy, noting that the sub-baccalaureate labor market includes over three-fifths of all workers. The highest job-growth rates are projected for sub-baccalaureate positions like technicians and support staff, especially in areas such as health and information technology. As such, 2-year colleges play a critical role in the nation's workforce development and can provide a particularly rich source of data on education–employment connections.

5. Peer’s effect on higher education
In the educational production function, peer quality is an input to a college’s production and one that cannot be bought from anyone other than its own customer. Peer quality is an input that costs, input that may or may not have substitutes, and an input whose use will be adjusted to reflect its costs, available substitutes, and resources. Higher education uses a customer-input technology. While this relationship may be clearest in a college’s production of something like intercollegiate sports entertainment——where only its own students can play on its teams——it is of greater importance in the production process for high quality academic education where students educate both themselves and each other, and the quality of the education any student gets from college depends in good measure on the quality of that student’s peers.
Peer effect also benefits peer tutoring, which is an interactive method of teaching and learning. The existence of one small pilot project at one time in an institution does not constitute peer tutoring on a large scale across the curriculum which is quality controlled and embedded within the organizational culture. However, peer tutoring is usually a relatively small component of a wide range of teaching and learning strategies deployed in higher education, so the extent to which it is realistic to expect associated gains to be measurable and widespread.

6. Online learning
Online learning provides a positive, caring environment for participants to learn about adult development in general and their own development in particular. More specifically, it was asserted that course participants shared personal material, supported each other in addressing individual needs, and encouraged the evolution of thinking about course issues in a personal way. Students will be ready to share their feelings, critically examined course issues, extended their support in helping peers, continually posted even when it was not a course expectation, and embraced many of the challenges of taking an online course.
The benefits of online learning extend beyond the time and place independence they provide for participants. Asynchronous, computer-mediated communication tools actually promote reflective and critical thinking, allowing for deep and meaningful learning to occur. In many ways, online learning provides the participants with an opportunity to experience change and their own ability to cope with it as part of their learning experience. It is through these type of experiences that educators can situate student learning about adult development and social change, providing the field and the learner with new models for potentiating the teaching and learning process.

7. About the history of American education and teaching professionalism
The Puritans believed that every person should be able to read the Bible. One hundred percent literacy seemed like a dream in the 17th century. Within just a few years after their arrival, they took steps to set up a system of education in America. During the period from 1880 to 1945, the “inquiry” method of learning, focusing on solving problems rather than memorizing facts, is popular in America. It taught not only the new information, such as the secrets of the stars and of the atom, but to help students ask their own questions about it. In 1940s, American blacks and other minority groups demanded educational opportunities equal to those of whites.
The pedagogical Progressives who embraced this child-centered pedagogy favored education built upon an experience-based curriculum developed by both students and teachers. Teachers played a special role in the Progressive formulation for education as they merged their deep knowledge of, and affection for, children with the intellectual demands of the subject matter. In the whirlwind of turn-of-the-century educational reform, the idea of educational Progressivism took on multiple, and often contradictory, definitions.Specific characteristics have been identified which are associated with career change among teachers. A variety of factors and attitudes regarding the teaching environment tend to   cause teachers to leave the field after a possibly brief stay.
Professionalism as a subject must be taught explicitly. This requires an institutionally accepted definition which then must be learned by both students and faculty. This directs what will be taught, expected, and evaluated. Of equal importance, and more difficult to achieve, is the incorporation of the values and attitudes of professionalism into the tacit knowledge base of physicians in training and in practice. This requires learning experiences which encourage self-reflection on professionalism throughout the continuum of medical education. Because of the great influence of role models and because most physicians do not fully understand professionalism and the obligations required to sustain it, faculty development is essential to the success of any program on professionalism. The institutional support including adequate resources, the presence of a longitudinal program which ensures repeated exposure throughout the educational process, a supportive environment, and a system of evaluation which reinforces teaching are also important.

References
[1]Winston, Gordon. "Subsidies, Hierarchy and Peers: The Awkward Economics of Higher Education." Journal of Economic Perspectives 13, no. 1 (1999): 13-36.
[2]Henry Merrill: Online Learning: From Information Dissemination to Fostering Collaboration. JI. Of Interactive Learning Research(2001)12(1),105-143.
[3]K. J. Topping: The effectiveness of peer tutoring in further and higher education: A typology and review of the literature. Higher Education 32:321-345,1996.
[4]Ann I. Morey: Globalization and the emergence of for-profit higher education. Higher Education. July 2004, Volume 48, Issue 1, pp 131-150.


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