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China's higher-education system has been shaped in recent years by a trio of factors: the COVID-19 pandemic, the ambitions of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to make his country into an innovation superpower that is loyal to the Communist Party, and western alarm about those ambitions. But a fourth development, the slowing of China's formerly super-charged economy, could play a more prominent role going forward. This article examines these four factors.

This paper estimates private and social returns to investment in education in Azerbaijan, using the 2015 Azerbaijan Monitoring Survey for Social Welfare. The private rate of return to education is 6 percent; this is the first estimate of returns to schooling in Azerbaijan since 1995. The returns to schooling are 6 percent for men and 8 percent for women, even controlling for selection. In addition, the paper estimates the returns for higher education; for this level, the rate of return is 9 percent. Finally, using the full discount method, the private rate of return to tertiary education is 9 percent, and the social rate of return is 8 percent. One policy implication is to re-examine the funding of higher education and for its expansion. [This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice.]

This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over the past two decades, although spending as a share of gross domestic product has remained relatively unchanged, at about 4.5 percent. However, global trends mask large differences across regions and country income groups. For example, low-income countries recorded the largest increases in terms of the share of GDP spent on education, but the absolute amount they devoted to education remained low compared to other countries. Economic growth has been the main driver of increases in public education spending. Yet, countries that achieved the largest and most rapid spending increases did this through a combination of increases in overall government revenues, a greater prioritization of education in the government budget as well as healthy economic growth. Increases in public education spending did not generally result in major improvements in average education outcomes. Using the available data, the paper shows that a doubling of government spending per child led to an increase in learning-adjusted years of schooling of only half a year. Preliminary findings also show that countries with lower efficiency and spending are expected to get the most from increases in spending in improved education outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining an approach that allows countries to assess their potential for increasing education funding and the expected effects on their education outcomes, based on benchmarks drawing from the data of comparable countries. It also underscores the urgent need to improve data on public education spending and education outcomes, to extend this analysis to cover a wider set of countries and increase the robustness of country-level benchmarks. [This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice.]

International students are critical to the competitiveness of American higher education in terms of financial, intercultural, and educational contributions. However, recent data indicates that the U.S institutions enrolled 31,520 fewer international students in Fall 2017 as compared to Fall 2016. At average tuition and fees of US$ 25,000, higher education institutions are likely to lose potential revenue of US$ 788 million for the first year of studies alone. This paper examines the shifting landscape of international enrollment from the lens of three overlapping Waves spread over seven years and takes a deeper dive into implications for American universities. Wave I was shaped by the terrorist attacks in September 2001 and resulted in slower overall growth in international student enrollment of 11% between 1999 and 2006. Wave II has its origins in the global financial crisis which prompted universities to search for self-funded students and experienced overall robust growth of 44 percent in international student enrollment between 2006 and 2013. Finally, Wave III is shaped by the new political order and intensified competition from English-taught programs in Europe and Asia which will slow down the pace of projected growth in international enrollment to 18 percent between 2013 and 2020. In this current Wave of intensified global competition, overall international student enrollment is likely to flatten or decline for most universities. While the reputation and quality of American higher education is admired and emulated around the world, resting on its past laurels will not be sufficient for attracting international students in the Third Wave. This means that universities must get proactive and strategic in reaching, engaging and supporting international students throughout their educational lifecycle. Demand for studying abroad among international students remains robust, however, increasing competition and expectations for value for money will requires proactive and concerted efforts to maintain the global competitiveness of American higher education.

We explore the recent undertaking in El Salvador to establish the country's first industry-higher education clusters in four economic sectors critical to growth and competitiveness: (1) information and communication technology; (2) light manufacturing; (3) energy and energy efficiency; and (4) agroindustry and food processing. These clusters take a systems approach to aligning higher education institutions (HEIs) with the talent and research needs of the private sector. Under the United States Agency for International Development's "Higher Education for Economic Growth" project, RTI International designed and facilitated a three-phase, 10-step process, beginning with the careful and transparent selection of sectors, followed by early engagement of key stakeholders, to form clusters and establish formal structures necessary for sustained multisector dialogue. The discourse ultimately culminated in the creation of data-driven strategic and operational plans guiding cluster actions. This paper documents this detailed process and highlights early successes and challenges observed. Finally, learnings and insights are also offered for those wishing to undertake a similar systems-level approach to collaboration between HEIs and industry with the goal of producing tangible, sector-level economic benefits.

The acceptance of new growth theory relates, in part, to a number of highly touted regional success stories--or what I term "Knowledge Based Economic Areas" (KBEAs) in this and past essays. The United States, and California in particular, is viewed as perhaps the most robust creators of KBEAs, providing an influential model that is visited and revisited by business and government leaders, and other Flagship (or leading national) universities, that wish to replicate their strengths within their own cultural and political terms. While California has a number of unique characteristics, including a robust University of California system with a strong internal academic culture and devotion to public service, the story of its historical and contemporary success as an agent of economic development is closely linked to a number of key contextual factors. These relate to the internal culture, governance and management capacity of major universities in the United States, national investment patterns in R&D, the business environment, including the concentration of Knowledge Based Businesses, the acceptance of risk, and the availability of venture capital, legal variables related to Intellectual Property (IP) and tax policies, the quality of regional workforces, and quality of life factors that are important components for attracting and retaining talent. In most of these KBEAs variables, California has enjoyed an advantage that helps to partially explain the success of the University of California (UC) and other major research universities as agents of economic development. This study focuses on seven contextual variables common to all KBEAs in the United States and much of the world, and with particular attention to the UC system--a network of ten research-intensive campuses. General Principles for a University Governing Board Association of Governing Boards (AGB) are appended.