There is strong evidence that expansion of university enrolment contributes to economic growth. Less clear, however, is whether that expansion will reduce income inequality. Human capital theory argues that education provides graduates with the knowledge and skills to be more productive. As more students from disadvantaged families graduate from…

Universities' reputations are built in part on graduates' assessments of the quality of education they received. What do these assessments tell us? Are graduates' judgments of quality based on their experiences as students or on their later job satisfaction, that is, on process or on outcomes? The objective of this study was to assess the extent…

The first multi-indicator ranking of world universities, "Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)", was published by the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in June 2003. Although the initial purpose of ARWU was to find the global standing of top Chinese universities, it has been attracting world-wide…

The relevant literature is rich enough about the differences between distance and face to face education. However, the number of studies examining these differences from the viewpoint of dual-mode alumni, those graduated from both distance and face to face education programmes is limited. In this study, opinions of 33 dual-mode alumni from Turkey…

This paper discusses the results of a meta-analysis performed to identify key antecedent and consequent constructs of satisfaction in higher education. We offer an integrated model to achieve a better understanding of satisfaction in the context of higher education. To accomplish this objective, we identified 83 studies that were valid and…

Since the recent global paradigm shift in the governance of higher education toward business and marketing, internationally competitive education is increasingly considered as an asset for governments. Consequently, governments started to invest in education branding and marketing their educational systems. In Finland, national interest in…

This study seeks to investigate and understand why and how Iranian higher education students choose to study overseas. After critically analyzing the international student mobility literature, the important factors are distilled. Then, by using Fuzzy-Delphi Method (FDM), 15 factors are selected from the 21 factors initially selected by reviewing…

Issues of the phenomenon of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and its integration into current online and campus education to enhance higher education quality in universities is gaining importance. This large scale form of online education has the potential to escalate the reputations of universities and increase the global access to their…

Contemporary meritocratic education discourse in England positions schools as 'engines of social mobility', responsible for enabling students' educational 'success' regardless of their circumstances. Building on critiques that characterise meritocracy as a neoliberal cultural motif that legitimates inequalities, and the capabilities approach, this…

There is some disparity in the quality of education among the various races and provinces in South Africa. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, the government has tried to bridge the gap using quintile categorisation of public schools and its concomitant funding. The categorisation is based on the socioeconomic status of the community in which the…

Adored worldwide for its 'outstanding' education system, Finland has relied on its excellent results in studies of the Programme for International Student Assessment to advertise and sell its education abroad. One of the keys to this success is often attributed to Finnish teachers, who are said to be 'the best and most respected in the world'.…

The article reveals specific features of functioning systems of higher education quality monitoring at the present stage, taking into account national traditions, historical experience and mentality of the population. The article introduces a comparative analysis of monitoring actors at national, regional and local levels in two countries. The…

This paper shows the variations of teaching and research in the performance of the top ranking universities in Asia and the World. The researchers found out that research involves knowledge production and teaching involves knowledge transmission, and that these are discrete activities in the university. Fractal features and analysis were used in…

This article explains why there are so few world-class universities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region today. It first summarises the systemic exogenous economic, political and social problems facing all countries in the region, and the impact of these on the development of their higher education sectors in recent times. Then, with…

Parents evaluate the reputations of the schools when making judgements about their desirability. They try to approximate the quality of schools and the social environment and contrast those with their hopes and fears concerning their child's education. We aim to clarify how the reputations of schools are constructed in Finland and Chile and what…