ABSTRACT
Higher education has expanded enormously in the modern era, globally, in response it is generally assumed to an ever-growing demand for higher-level skills. Within this simple framework, often labelled the ‘technology bias thesis’ (TBT), universities are held to play a specific role, producing the skills required by the economy. This does not mean there need be a balance between this demand for and supply of skills, though many analysts see equilibrium as inherent to the system. Individual entrants into higher education (HE) are characterised as investors in their own education, seeking to raise their own productivity in response to market signals. In deciding whether or not to invest resources (money and time) in HE they are assumed to know the long-term financial value of their investment. More specifically, they are able to cost their prospective expenditure1 and to balance this against the expected wages from the type of job they have selected (summed over the career), which the qualification makes possible. This ‘human capital theory’ (HCT), clearly based on the concept of rational action, is still generally favoured by economists despite some internal criticism, such as Manski’s: ‘Having witnessed the struggles of econometricians to learn the returns to schooling, I find it difficult to accept the proposition that adolescents are endowed with this knowledge’ (Manski 1993: 49). Data on graduate recruitment suggest that for the ‘majority [of new graduates], moving into employment is a slow transition with many experiencing several years of turbulence and having to compete for jobs with non-graduates’ (Pearson 2006: 76).
