高等教育与经济关系的阶段性——基于五国高等教育规模逆增长现象

A New Phase of the Relationship between Higher Education and Economy:Based on the Phenomenon of Higher Education Scale Inverse Growth in Five Countries

现代高等教育规模增长与经济发展呈现正相关关系。但基于高等教育弹性系数的考察,中、俄、美、英、法等五国在过去30年间均出现了阶段性的高等教育规模逆增长现象,即在经济增长持续低迷时,高等教育规模出现不受经济增速减缓制约的增长行为。该现象表明,高等教育与经济关系出现变化:在原有正相关关系中,经济系统对高等教育规模增长的制约作用减弱,高等教育系统对经济增长的促进作用增强。从单一系统的视角来看,规模增长下结构变化导致高等教育功能的拓展,直接驱使两者关系发生变化。从复合系统的视角来看,高等教育系统对经济发展依赖性的降低及经济发展对高等教育依赖性的增强,是导致关系变化的根本原因。该现象还揭示了高等教育与经济关系由低级走向高级的动态变化实质。

The scale growth of modern higher education and economic development shows a positive correlation.However,based on the investigation of the elasticity coefficient of higher education,China,Russia,the United States,Britain and France have appeared the phenomenon of phased reverse growth of higher education scale in the past 30 years,that the scale of higher education expands without being restricted by the slowdown of economic growth when the economic growth continues to be sluggish.This phenomenon indicates that the relationship between higher education and economy has changed.In the original positive correlation,the restriction effect of economic system on the growth of higher education scale is weakened,and the promotion effect of higher education system on economic growth is enhanced.From the perspective of a single system,the structural changes under the expansion of scale lead to the expansion of the function in higher education system,which directly drives the changes of the relationship.From the perspective of compound system,the decreasing dependence of higher education system on economic growth and the increasing dependence of economic development on higher education are the fundamental causes for the change of the relationship.This phenomenon also reveals the essence of the dynamic change of the relationship between higher education and economy from low level to high level.