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As Higher Education Expands, is it Contributing to Greater Inequality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Martin Carnoy
Martin Carnoy*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Abstract

This paper reviews the various elements that enter into the relation between higher education expansion and income distribution. Contrary to the prevailing ideology, the paper suggests that under certain conditions the mass expansion of higher education can contribute to greater income inequality. These conditions are related to three important variables not usually considered in the education-income distribution model: rising returns to university education relative to secondary and primary education, decreasing public spending differences between higher and lower levels of education, and increasing spending differences between elite and mass universities. All three appear to be increasingly common features of educational expansion in developing countries, including large ones such as China, Russia, Brazil, and India, although researchers are just beginning to observe such changing patterns of spending within higher education systems. The paper discusses the role that such payoffs and government education spending patterns can play in contributing to changes in income distribution using suggestive data from the developing countries.

Keywords

Higher educationincome distributionD31J23O15
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 215 , January 2011 , pp. R34 - R47
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

This paper was prepared for the LLAKES (Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies) International Conference, July 5–6, at the University of London. Many thanks to Andy Green and the LLAKES staff for putting together this important conference.

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