Universities in the EU, the US and China

[Martin]

http://economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4340031

 

the London Economist has a interesting set of articles about higher education in the EU compared to US and to China

 

Here is a sample:

 

"...Universities are a mess across Europe. European countries spend only 1.1% of their GDP on higher education, compared with 2.7% in the United States. American universities have between two and five times as much to spend per student as European universities, which translates into smaller classes, better professors and higher-quality research. The European Commission estimates that 400,000 EU-born scientific researchers are now working in the United States. Most have no plans to return. Europe produces only a quarter of the American number of patents per million people. It needs to ask itself not whether it can overtake the United States as the world's top knowledge economy by 2010, but how it can avoid being overtaken by China and other Asian tigers..."

 

another part of the Economist coverage deals with a huge buildup in China

http://economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4340005

 

here is a sample:

"...In higher education, as in so much else, China is visibly pulling ahead of India. The Chinese are engaged in the biggest university expansion in history. In the 1980s, only 2-3% of school-leavers went to university. In 2003, the figure was 17%. The watershed year was 1999, when the number of students enrolled jumped by almost half. The expansion at the doctoral level is even faster than for undergraduates: in 1999-2003, nearly 12 times as many doctorates were awarded as in 1982-89 (see chart 4). And there is more to come: the number of new doctoral students jumped from 14,500 in 1998 to 48,700 in 2003.

 

The Chinese are determined to create a super-league of universities to rival the best in the world. The central government is investing heavily in chosen universities, such as Peking, Tsinghua and Fudan, offering higher salaries and more research funding. The state governments are doing likewise. It is no accident that the most widely used annual ranking of the world's research universities, the Shanghai index, is produced by a Chinese university.

 

What lies behind all this is a gigantic exercise in technology transfer. The Chinese are trying to recreate the best western universities at home in order to compete in more sophisticated industries. They have stocked up with foreign PhDs: in some departments of the University of Peking, a third of the faculty members have American doctorates. They are using joint ventures with foreign universities in much the same way as Chinese companies use joint ventures with foreign companies."

 

there are half a dozen or so articles in this Economist survey of higher ed. can't sample them all, but several are interesting. the figures on the growth of higher ed and engineering education in China are amazing---may be moving to dominant position in knowledgebased industries

[Martin]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,1081269,00.html

 

sample:"...Turning theory into reality is the third factor: Low-cost countries—not just China and India but also Mexico, Malaysia, Brazil, and others—are turning out large numbers of well-educated young people fully qualified to work in an information-based economy. China will produce about 3.3 million college graduates this year, India 3.1 million (all of them English-speaking), the U.S. just 1.3 million. In engineering, China’s graduates will number over 600,000, India’s 350,000, America’s only about 70,000..."

[DQW]

China will produce about 3.3 million college graduates this year, India 3.1 million (all of them English-speaking), the U.S. just 1.3 million. In engineering, China’s graduates will number over 600,000, India’s 350,000, America’s only about 70,000[/b']..."

Note that China and India have respectively 4 times and 3 times the population of the US. On the other hand, they both have much greater fractions of their populations living below the poverty line.

[Martin]

Note that China and India have respectively 4 times and 3 times the population of the US. On the other hand, they both have much greater fractions of their populations living below the poverty line.

 

Dee, I see China has only 4 times as many people but it is turning out 8 to 9 times as many engineers per year.

 

Even if it were not a poorer, perhaps average less educated, population that would be an important achievement. when you take account of the per-capita wealth and what you mention then it is even more remarkable.

 

Turning to the figures for India, I see that the educational system trains 350,000 engineers per year, FIVE times as many as the USA, which trains 70,000. And according to you the population is only 3 times the USA. So even without taking into account the percapita and the stage of development, even if the wealth situation were the same, it would already be impressive.

 

in the long term, I think educational level translates into economic strength and geopolitical power----so expect a rebalancing of global relationships.

 

 

what this says to me is that the Bush administration should be reinforcing global institutions rather than tearing them down, and should be reinforcing cooperative agreements and treaties, and should be building a global rule of law rather than the hegemony pattern----that what it is doing is extremely unwise and will make the impact, as a modernized Asia arrives on the scene, much more disruptive. Only very strong group-spirited international system can buffer and absorb the shocks of changes of this magnitude. Bush is sacrificing the future for an antiquated doctrine. It is very sad. even horrible.

[albertlee]

and....

 

in China, the environment is very competitive.... hardship embraces the spirit...

 

That's why in various areas of study, Chinese students who are able to receive funds to study outside China are usually very preeminent....

[Klaynos]

along these lines...

 

According to an article I read in new scientist the other day which I found surprissing was that percentage wise with people leaving university with science degrees the US is about half of what the EU is...

[DQW]

Marty,

 

You realize there's powerful motivation to get educated, in places like India and China. Without a higher education, survival is real tough - and that's a darn good reason to get your @$$ into school. With no college degree, you can't hope for a whole lot more than a position of an unskilled laborer. And in these countries, labor is very cheap, even by the local standards. An unskilled laborer lives very close to the poverty line.

 

In the west, life is not a struggle without a college education. I recently read an article in the uiversity newspaper that discussed truck drivers for the solid waste disposal facility who were making over $70,000 a year !

 

School ? Bah ! Overrated !

[scientistsahai]

Marty' date='

 

You realize there's powerful motivation to get educated, in places like India and China. Without a higher education, survival is real tough - and that's a darn good reason to get your @$$ into school. With no college degree, you can't hope for a whole lot more than a position of an unskilled laborer. And in these countries, labor is very cheap, even by the local standards. An unskilled laborer lives very close to the poverty line.

[/quote']

 

 

In India, more than 85% of the educated are undergrads or graduates with some or the other professionals courses like Accounting, MBA, R&D etc. It is not just the sheer number but the will to study and compete with the world and come out victorious. The challenge is not just to earn a college grad or post grad but to increase their knowledge at par with what an American does during his lifetime !!

 

The labour in India & china is not cheap it's just in the competitive environment.