ABSTRACT
The last two decades have seen a major expansion in the worldwide role of higher education. This mega-trend, uneven by region, is associated with the three other mega-trends in modernization: the relative growth of knowledge intensive work, urbanization, and the expansion of the middle class. The capitalist economy continues to absorb precapitalist rural sectors in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The proportion of the world population in cities has exceeded 50%. The European Union Institute for Strategic Economic Studies estimates the size of the global middle class (persons with $10–100 US dollars a day) will increase from 1.8 billion in 2009 to 4.9 billion in 2030, over half the world's population (Vasconcelos, 2012, pp. 28–30). The majority of growth in the middle class will be in Asia, mainly China and India, from half a billion persons in 2009 to over 3 billion persons in 2030. The new members of the middle class will want higher education for their children.
