scholarly journals Systematic shifts in scaling behavior based on organizational strategy in universities

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0254582
Author(s):  
Ryan C. Taylor ◽  
Xiaofan Liang ◽  
Manfred D. Laubichler ◽  
Geoffrey B. West ◽  
Christopher P. Kempes ◽  
...  

To build better theories of cities, companies, and other social institutions such as universities, requires that we understand the tradeoffs and complementarities that exist between their core functions, and that we understand bounds to their growth. Scaling theory has been a powerful tool for addressing such questions in diverse physical, biological and urban systems, revealing systematic quantitative regularities between size and function. Here we apply scaling theory to the social sciences, taking a synoptic view of an entire class of institutions. The United States higher education system serves as an ideal case study, since it includes over 5,800 institutions with shared broad objectives, but ranges in strategy from vocational training to the production of novel research, contains public, nonprofit and for-profit models, and spans sizes from 10 to roughly 100,000 enrolled students. We show that, like organisms, ecosystems and cities, universities and colleges scale in a surprisingly systematic fashion following simple power-law behavior. Comparing seven commonly accepted sectors of higher education organizations, we find distinct regimes of scaling between a school’s total enrollment and its expenditures, revenues, graduation rates and economic added value. Our results quantify how each sector leverages specific economies of scale to address distinct priorities. Taken together, the scaling of features within a sector along with the shifts in scaling across sectors implies that there are generic mechanisms and constraints shared by all sectors, which lead to tradeoffs between their different societal functions and roles. We highlight the strong complementarity between public and private research universities, and community and state colleges, that all display superlinear returns to scale. In contrast to the scaling of biological systems, our results highlight that much of the observed scaling behavior is modulated by the particular strategies of organizations rather than an immutable set of constraints.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siluvai Raja

Education has been considered as an indispensable asset of every individual, community and nation today. Indias higher education system is the third largest in the world, after China and the United States (World Bank). Tamil Nadu occupies the first place in terms of possession of higher educational institutions in the private sector in the country with over 46 percent(27) universities, 94 percent(464) professional colleges and 65 percent(383) arts and science colleges(2011). Studies to understand the profile of the entrepreneurs providing higher education either in India or Tamil Nadu were hardly available. This paper attempts to map the demographic profile of the entrepreneurs providing higher education in Arts and Science colleges in Tamil Nadu through an empirical analysis, carried out among 25 entrepreneurs spread across the state. This paper presents a summary of major inferences of the analysis.


Author(s):  
Brendan Cantwell

This chapter provides a detailed and extensive assessment of the United States of America’s (USA) high participation systems (HPS) of higher education. It considers the history of higher education, system development, and the present condition of higher education in the country. The USA was the first HPS and the American system remains globally influential. Higher education in the USA is a massive enterprise, defined by both excellent and dubious providers, broad inclusion, and steep inequality. The chapter further examines higher education in the USA in light of the seventeen HPS propositions. Perhaps more so than any other system, the American HPS conforms to the propositions. Notably, higher education in the USA is both more diverse horizontally, and stratified vertically, than most other HPS.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander K. Davis

Ample sociological evidence demonstrates that binary gender ideologies are an intractable part of formal organizations and that transgender issues tend to be marginalized by a wide range of social institutions. Yet, in the last 15 years, more than 200 colleges and universities have attempted to ameliorate such realities by adopting gender-inclusive facilities in which students of any gender can share residential and restroom spaces. What cultural logics motivate these transformations? How can their emergence be reconciled with the difficulty of altering the gender order? Using an original sample of 2,036 campus newspaper articles, I find that support for inclusive facilities frames such spaces as a resource through which an institution can claim improved standing in the field of higher education. This process of engendering reputation allows traditional gender separation in residential arrangements to be overcome, but it also situates institutional responsiveness to transgender issues as a means of enhancing a college or university’s public prestige. This, in turn, produces novel status systems in the field of higher education—albeit ones that perpetuate familiar forms of institutional and cultural exclusion.


Author(s):  
Robert B. Archibald ◽  
David H. Feldman

This book evaluates the threats—real and perceived—that American colleges and universities must confront over the next thirty years. Those threats include rising costs endemic to personal services like higher education, growing income inequality in the United States that affects how much families can pay, demographic changes that will affect demand, and labor market changes that could affect the value of a degree. The book also evaluates changing patterns of state and federal support for higher education, and new digital technologies rippling through the entire economy. Although there will be great challenges ahead for America’s complex mix of colleges and universities, this book’s analysis is an antidote to the language of crisis that dominates contemporary public discourse. The bundle of services that four-year colleges and universities provide likely will retain their value for the traditional age range of college students. The division between in-person education for most younger students and online coursework for older and returning students appears quite stable. This book provides a view that is less pessimistic about the present, but more worried about the future. The diverse American system of four-year institutions is resilient and adaptable. But the threats this book identifies will weigh most heavily on the schools that disproportionately serve America’s most at-risk students. The future could cement in place a bifurcated higher education system, one for the children of privilege and great potential and one for the riskier social investment in the children of disadvantage.


2019 ◽  
Vol 683 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Zwick

In this article, I review the role of college admissions tests in the United States and consider the fairness issues surrounding their use. The two main tests are the SAT, first administered in 1926, and the ACT, first given in 1959. Scores on these tests have been shown to contribute to the prediction of college performance, but their role in the admissions process varies widely across colleges. Although test scores are consistently listed as one of the most important admissions factors in national surveys of postsecondary institutions, an increasing number of schools have adopted “test-optional” policies. At these institutions, test score requirements are seen as a barrier to campus diversity because of the large performance gaps among ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Fortunately, the decentralized higher education system in the United States can accommodate a wide range of admissions policies. It is essential, however, that the impact of admissions policy changes be studied and that the resource implications of these changes be thoroughly considered.


Author(s):  
Sh. K. Suleimenova

At the present stage, Kazakhstan is in new socio-political, economic and international conditions caused by growing globalization. This determines, on the one hand, a significant impact on the development of the education system of Kazakhstan of world educational trends, on the other hand, the market nature of the national economy determines the inevitability of the impact of education in general, and educational services, in particular, on the country's economy and its development through the capitalization of knowledge. Currently, Kazakhstan's universities are developing in accordance with the trends that have developed in the world and domestic economy, among which globalization stands out. The modern Kazakh higher education is characterized by the desire to integrate into the world educational space. The purpose of this article is to study the international experience in managing the quality of higher education on the example of some European countries and the United States of America. The modern two models of quality management of higher education in the global educational space are characterized and the model of assessing the quality of higher education in Kazakhstan is determined. The article analyzes the Kazakh legislation in the field of state control and assessment of the quality of higher education. The best approaches to assessing the quality of higher education for the Kazakh higher education system have been identified, following the example of the foreign countries under consideration. To write the article such methods of research as analysis of legal acts and documents, case study, deduction and generalization were used.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Kurniawati ◽  
Choirul Saleh ◽  
M.R. Khairul Muluk

Globalization and international standard universities trend drive the higher education system to become more dynamic and innovative. The lecturer is a profession that drives and encourages university competitiveness. Therefore, better career advancement and development are vital in encouraging higher education competitiveness. The United States of America (USA) is currently a world-class university orientation, followed by Australia. Hence, other countries, especially developing countries, should know the USA and Australia higher education system, especially in the lecturers’ career advancement and development. This study is necessary to answer research questions about comparing academic career advancement systems in the USA and Australia. This study will give other countries new insight into academic career advancement. The researchers apply the findings from a systematic review. This study focuses on six aspects discussed: regulations, educational qualifications, lecturer obligation status in the higher education, career ladder, career advancement stages, and the lecturers' duties also responsibilities in lecturer career advancement in the USA and Australia. This study examines the gap between lecturers' career advancement systems in the USA and Australia comprehensively. The researchers observe by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the lecturer career advancement system in the USA and Australia. Also, the researchers compare the results using comparative public administration theory.


2020 ◽  
pp. 484-506
Author(s):  
Tamara S. Nemchinova ◽  
◽  
Anton A. Muzalev ◽  

The article assesses the export potential of Russian and Turkish universities. The influx of foreign citizens to study at universities is the most important quality criterion for the country’s higher education system. It is also an indicator of the country’s integration into the world community and a major export item. The leaders in the number of students from other countries have traditionally been the United States, Great Britain, France, the USSR, and Germany. At the turn of XX — XXI centuries. a significant increase in foreign students is observed in Australia, Japan, China. Other countries are also taking steps to improve the national higher education system and, accordingly, increase the number of foreign students. But attempts to penetrate the world market of educational services are significantly complicated, the market is already thoroughly divided, and the states that have long been entrenched in it are not going to allow new players to enter it. This process is also taking place in Turkey, which is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.


2015 ◽  
pp. 21-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip G. Altbach

Classifying higher education institutions in a complex higher education system is quite important for understanding the system and the role of institutions within it. In the United States, the Carnegie Classification, developed by Clark Kerr and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching developed such a system. Now, under new leadership, the future of the original model is threatened.


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