Demographic Change as a Factor Influencing the Development of Higher Education 1

There is no doubt that higher education in the industrial countries has seen an unprecedented growth in the number of students during the last ten to fifteen years; in those countries which are members of the OECD nineteen out of twenty-three at least doubled the number of higher education students between 1955 and 1965 ² which is an average annual growth rate of more than 7 per cent.