Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives: Reengineering China Through the Greater Bay Economy and Development ... in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance) 9811688699, 9789811688690

Citation preview

Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance

Ka Ho Mok   Editor

Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives Reengineering China Through the Greater Bay Economy and Development

Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance Series Editors Angela Yung Chi Hou, College of Education, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan Akiyoshi Yonezawa, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan Sheng-Ju Chan, Graduate Institute of Education, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan Ka Ho Mok, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China

The book series attempts to incorporate the most important higher education issues and current developments in Asian nations from multiple perspectives – academics, university managers, QA bodies, governments and students – into three major dimensions: quality, excellence and governance. “Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance” Quality: The quality of higher education in Asia is a hot topic, especially as students around the world are asked to pay more towards their own education, and expect to get what they pay for. At the same time, the government and higher education institutions are also more attentive to the quality of higher education, facing both quantitative and qualitative challenges, such as increased enrolment, less motivation for student engagement, mismatch between academic curriculums and required competence for securing employability. In addition, quality of cross-border education is a focus of the series due to the increased student mobility in Asia. Excellence: With the growth of competition between nations, the pursuit of excellence and the creation of world class universities are increasingly important in national agendas in both developing and developed countries. Several excellence programs have been created in Asia to fulfill the objective. In East Asia, China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast nations developed higher education excellence initiatives so as to build a number of world class universities in a short period of time. The book series encourages researchers to undertake empirical studies of government policies and assess the impacts driven from these competitive initiatives. Governance: Asian higher education systems are experiencing a fundamental transformation due to economic growth, talent mobility, and international competition. Concurrently, globalization has also accelerated Asian higher education moving into a new era of quality education. On the one hand, Asian government expanded the size of higher education in both number of institutions and enrollment; on the other hand, the public management model, which strengthens governmental control over higher education institutions, is growing its popularity in Asian nations as well. In the era of higher education massification, the public’s desire to maintain and increase both “quantity” and “quality” has placed tremendous pressure on the efficient governance of higher education at the national and institutional levels. Guidelines and Principles The Book Series adopts internationally established review process. It mainly consists of the following four review phases: 1. All proposals and manuscripts will be sent out for external double-blind review. 2. After receiving review reports, the co-editors of the series will further review the comments of external reviewers before forming a decision of acceptance of proposal for publication. 3. Review reports will be shared with proposers and their revisions will be further taken into consideration if a book contract is issued. 4. After receiving the completed manuscript, the co-editors will review the quality of the book and also seek external review in order to ensure quality before formal publication. Abstracted/Indexed in: Scopus

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/11872

Ka Ho Mok Editor

Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives Reengineering China Through the Greater Bay Economy and Development

Editor Ka Ho Mok Lingnan University Hong Kong, China

ISSN 2365-6352 ISSN 2365-6360 (electronic) Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance ISBN 978-981-16-8869-0 ISBN 978-981-16-8870-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

1

The Role of Higher Education, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in Bay Areas: Challenges and Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ka Ho Mok

Part I 2

3

4

Bay Area Development from Comparative and Historical Perspectives

Higher Education and Human Capital and in the “New York Bay Area”: Historical Lessons from the City University of New York (CUNY) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adam R. Nelson Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area: Based on the Relationship Among Universities, Government and the Japanese Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weida Deng Universities and New Growth Regional Ecosystems in the US and California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Aubrey Douglass

Part II

1

17

59

81

Development of the Greater Bay Area in China: Opportunity and Challenge

5

Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes on Higher Education Cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau: Analysis Based on 65 Related Policy Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Qin Liang

6

Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem in China’s Greater Bay Area: A Correlation Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Ke Jin Zhu, Jin Yuan Ma, and Yi Cao

v

vi

Contents

7

How to Build World-Class Universities in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Taoli Wang

8

Transformation of Cross-Border Regional Innovation Networks: A Case Study of Hong Kong and Shenzhen . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Jue Wang, Kevin Chandra, Coco Du, Weizhen Ding, and Xun Wu

Part III Development of the Greater Bay Area in China: Student Perspectives 9

Inter-Provincial Mobility of Chinese Ph.D. Graduates and Its Implication for the Development of Higher Education in the Greater Bay Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Dandong Xu and Wenqin Shen

10 Barriers in the Commencement of Entrepreneurship for University Graduates in China’s Greater Bay Area: Human Capital or Social Capital? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Yuyang Kang 11 Brain Drain or Brain Gain: A Growing Trend of Chinese International Students Returning Home for Development . . . . . . . . . 245 Ka Ho Mok, Youliang Zhang, and Wei Bao 12 Conclusion: The Prospects of Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Greater Bay Area in China . . . . . . . . . . 269 Ka Ho Mok

Contributors

Wei Bao Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China Yi Cao School of System Design and Intelligent Manufacturing, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China Kevin Chandra Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China Weida Deng Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China Weizhen Ding Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China John Aubrey Douglass University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA Coco Du Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou, China Yuyang Kang School of Graduate Studies, Institute of Policy Studies, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong Qin Liang South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China Jin Yuan Ma Center for Higher Education Research, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China Ka Ho Mok Institute of Policy Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China Adam R. Nelson University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA Wenqin Shen Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China Jue Wang Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore Taoli Wang Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China Xun Wu Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China Dandong Xu Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China

vii

viii

Contributors

Youliang Zhang Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China; Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, Hong Kong, China Ke Jin Zhu Center for Higher Education Research, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

Chapter 1

The Role of Higher Education, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in Bay Areas: Challenges and Opportunities Ka Ho Mok

Abstract Setting out against the development blueprint of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area in Southern China, this introductory chapter provides the broader context for this book, with a special focus on the ways in which institutions of higher education in the GBA and other global “bay areas” have worked to promote research, innovation, and entrepreneurship over time. The chapter offers an overview of the book and highlights the major arguments presented by its respective chapters. The last part of the chapter critically reflects upon the major challenges for future development GBA in China, especially the challenge of persuading young people from Hong Kong and other parts of Mainland China to pursue employment and long-term residence in the GBA. Keywords Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area · Innovation · Entrepreneurship · Higher education · Internationalization

Introduction In the last few decades, China has successfully transformed its economic structure from an agriculturally centered production model to a more industrially oriented model. Since its economic “opening” in the early 1980s, China has become the second largest economy in the world. And yet, the country’s success as the World’s Largest Factory cannot sustain its long-term growth. Realizing the strategic importance of innovation and creativity in shaping future economic and social development, the Chinese government has made serious efforts to enhance its higher-education research efforts and knowledge-transfer activities. Aspiring to become a research-oriented entrepreneurial state, China has invested in higher K. H. Mok (B) Institute of Policy Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. H. Mok (ed.), Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6_1

1

2

K. H. Mok

education research and supported innovation and creative industries in hopes of transforming the country around the keyword innovation (Mok et al., 2020). With strategic investments and centralized assessment metrics to enhance research and development, China is becoming a country with a strong research and development infrastructure. Two measures of China’s rise in scientific research are its number of international publications and patents (Marginson, 2018, 2020). Recognizing the important role of higher education in the promotion of scientific research, economic innovation, and entrepreneurship, the government of Mainland China has called for deeper collaboration between cities in the southern part of the country and Hong Kong and Macau (the two Special Administrative Regions of China). Its aim is to foster economic and social development across the region through a Pan-Pearl River Delta cooperation initiative. Referring to successful “bay area” economies in Tokyo and San Francisco, the Chinese central government in 2019 launched a strategic development initiative to transform the Pan-Pearl River Delta region into the so-called Greater Bay Area (GBA), with the goal of elevating the region into a globally competitive innovation and technology hub. As Hui, et al., have noted, “The Greater Bay Area is a unique mega city region situated at the Pearl River Delta” (2018, p. 1). Most recently, inspired by the 40th anniversary of the City of Shenzhen and the creation of its Special Economic Zone, President Xi Jinping called for deeper collaborations across the nine major cities of Guangdong Province and the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, particularly encouraging young people from these cities to explore development opportunities in the GBA. This introductory chapter provides the broader context for this book, with a special focus on the ways in which institutions of higher education in the GBA and other global “bay areas” have worked to promote research, innovation, and entrepreneurship over time. The chapter offers an overview of the book and highlights the major arguments presented by its respective chapters. The last part of the chapter critically reflects upon the major challenges for future development GBA in China, especially the challenge of persuading young people from Hong Kong and other parts of Mainland China to pursue employment and long-term residence in the GBA.

Fostering Social and Economic Integration Through Greater Bay Area Development Confronted with rising global trade conflicts, the Chinese central government has looked for “new engines” of economic growth. As its exported-led industrial growth has been hit hard by U.S. tariffs and other barriers, China has sought to further open its domestic economy to sustain its overall rate of growth (Zeng, 2018). Realizing the strategic importance of promoting innovation-centered entrepreneurship, the Chinese

1 The Role of Higher Education, Innovation …

3

government in February 2019 issued the Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (hereafter GBA Plan) to outline the guiding ideology, basic principles, strategic positioning, and development objectives for making the GBA a globally competitive innovation and technology hub, with a modern industrial system and high-quality living and working conditions (GBA Plan, 2019). Admiring other world-leading bay areas that have successful knowledge-based economies, the Chinese government positioned the GBA as a major regional hub for strengthening cooperation across the nine cities in Guangdong with the two Special Administrative Regions, Hong Kong and Macau, and thus contributing to its Belt and Road Initiative. In particular, the central government of China hopes that residents of the two Special Administrative Regions—particularly Hong Kong—will make use of GBA incentives to better integrate with Mainland development strategies. Some commentators say the GBA is intended to create a special role for Hong Kong to play in the region, especially when China’s central government is worried about what it calls the insufficient social and economic integration between Hong Kong and the Mainland after the governance changeover in 1997. As Liu (2019) highlighted, “the integration of Hong Kong into China is all to do with Beijing’s political encroachment in Hong Kong’s affairs, and [the promise of] a more liberal market economy with rule of law, private property rights, and respect of contracts in a largely state-led economy” (p. 53). In addition, the development of the GBA is a strategy adopted to create more urban jobs, better infrastructure connectivity, and modernized housing, education, and other forms of professional services. By eliminating different kinds of institutional and non-institutional barriers to business that hinder the free flow of goods, resources, and people, the GBA Plan requires cities within the region to support economic cooperation and social integration (Yu, 2019). While recent events have revealed tensions around these goals, the central government of China has pressed forward with this project, supported by significant financial resources. The central government of China hopes to make the GBA: (1) a vibrant worldclass city cluster; (2) a globally influential international innovation and technology hub; (3) an important support pillar for the Belt and Road Initiative; (4) a showcase for in-depth cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Macau; and (5) a desirable destination for living, working, and traveling (GBA Plan, pp. 8–9). Among these development goals, the Chinese government is keen to facilitate “the efficient and orderly flow of people, goods, capital, and information, give new impetus to the development of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau, and set an example of closer cooperation between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macau” (bayarea.gov.hk, p. 9). In this process, institutions of higher education are supposed to play a key role.

4

K. H. Mok

Major Arguments of the Book Development Experiences of Bay Economies: Comparative Perspectives Before examining the aims of the GBA Development Plan in Guangdong Province, this volume begins with a consideration of the development experiences of bay economies in other parts of the globe, including the New York, Tokyo, and San Francisco Bay Areas. In Chap. 2, Adam Nelson opens the discussion by examining the development of the City University of New York (CUNY) from an historical perspective. Nelson’s essay shows how CUNY became the largest system of higher education in New York City, with twenty-five campuses, including two-year, fouryear, and postgraduate schools. In fact, 46% of all university students in New York City attend CUNY, which enrolls more than half a million degree- and non-degree students every year. How did the institution achieve this remarkable success? To answer this question, Nelson highlights two important features of CUNY’s history. As he notes, “most histories of CUNY fall into two broad categories. The first emphasizes its students’ immigrant backgrounds. Whether from German or Irish origins during the mid-nineteenth century, Russian or Ukrainian origins during the late nineteenth century, or Latin American and East Asian origins during the late twentieth century, CUNY’s students have always been ‘international.’ The second category of CUNY histories emphasizes its students’ liberal, or leftist, politics, especially their advocacy of academic freedom and civil liberties; their concern for worker rights, racial justice, and non-discrimination; and their willingness to mobilize larger political coalitions in New York City (and beyond) in support of these values” (Nelson, 2022, p. 27). Nelson’s analysis is no simple historical review of the development of the City University of New York. What his essay contributes to this volume is a much broader interpretation of the demographic, social, and political factors that facilitated CUNY’s rise to prominence over time, specifically from a “bay area” point of view. CUNY’s unique institutional history reflected the international backgrounds of its students, largely members of the immigrant working classes. From a perspective of human-capital development, Nelson reveals CUNY’s contribution not only to economic growth in New York City but also to a global mission of educational opportunity and social justice. The case of CUNY provides a useful international reference point for leaders in the GBA to contemplate higher-education development strategies and, perhaps, to anticipate some of the social, cultural, and political challenges these strategies might confront. History does not repeat, and of course each country (and each bay area) is different, but comparative historical analyses can teach valuable lessons when policy makers consider them carefully. In the spirit of comparative analysis, Weida Deng in Chap. 3 critically reviews higher-education development in the Tokyo Bay Area. Previous bay-economy studies have indicated the important role of universities in forming a strong cluster of research and innovation forces (Douglass & King, 2018). Yet, before the Chinese central government moves to create more universities in the GBA—based on the

1 The Role of Higher Education, Innovation …

5

assumed productive function generated by leading universities with strong capacities in support of innovation-centric entrepreneurship—it should take a close look at the comparative insights drawn from Deng’s analysis. The expansion of higher education in the Tokyo Bay Area and the simultaneous decline of the student agecohort caused challenges for higher-education development in the area. According to Deng, owing to insufficient local enrollments, many private universities from the Kanto Region moved their campuses to central Tokyo to attract students, but this move contributed to increased population density in Tokyo and economic depression in the surrounding areas. To address these problems, the Japanese government reacted by introducing policies such as controlling the enrollment of some universities and regulating the over-supply of college graduates in some industries. These policies created further problems for many universities. Deng’s study examines the relation between private universities, the Japanese government, and the Japanese economy in the context of an operational planning crisis. Such findings are highly relevant for the Chinese government as it seeks to plan for higher-education expansion in the GBA. While the bay area in South China has not yet had a critical mass of universities, particularly research universities with international standing, the call for a rapid expansion of new university campuses, including many new transnational (Sino-Foreign) higher-education collaborations, has raised concerns related to quality assurance and institutional sustainability, not only in terms of higher-education finance but also in terms of a sufficient supply of student enrollments to support research and academic programmes (Liu, 2021; Sharma, 2021). If the planned expansion occurs too quickly, many institutions could fail or could offer low-quality programs in order to attract enough students, a potential misallocation of valuable development resources. To explore a successful allocation of development resources, Chap. 4 returns to the U.S. context with a study of higher education in the San Francisco Bay Area. This region became a center of innovation and economic development because of long-term investments in research universities, robust forms of federal researchand-development funding, increasing access to venture capital, tax policies that promoted private investment in university basic research, and a political culture that supported entrepreneurs and risk-taking. Even within the United States, the state of California established a reputation for leadership in the nexus of academic research and economic policy. Drawing on the experience of San Francisco Bay Area economy, John Aubrey Douglass outlines some of the important contextual variables that explain the attributes of Knowledge Based Economic Areas ecosystems in the United States, and specifically in California, and the important role of major universities—both public and private—with a focus on the interplay of California’s public “Flagship University” and the University of California’s ten-campus system. As the Chinese government attempts to identify the best practices of other bay-area economies, it could learn useful lessons from the San Francisco Bay Area experience, just as it could draw valuable lessons from the histories of higher-education development in New York and Tokyo. However, policy learning should always be grounded in careful contextualization. China and the United States have very different cultures, political systems, economic

6

K. H. Mok

practices, and social contexts. Cai Zong-qi, a leading Chinese and comparative literature expert based in Lingnan University, Hong Kong, highlights the importance of adopting a more transcultural perspective when analyzing Chinese literature in a cross-cultural environment (Cai, 2021); the wisdom generated from comparative literature research is also relevant to comparative policy research of bay-area economic development. For example, the expansion of higher education in Taiwan, which drew on models from the United States without careful contextual adaptation, has shown the problems that can arise from an “implementation deficit,” causing tremendous challenges for youth transitions (Hou et al., 2020). Hence, we must be sensitive to unique socio-historical, economic, cultural, and political contexts as China pursues rapid higher-education development in the GBA. As Ji and Pan have argued, although there are similarities between the economies of the GuangdongHong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and the other bay-area economies around the world, each has unique characteristics (Ji & Pan, 2021). Hence, policy learning should be properly contextualized instead of direct policy copying, which typically fails. So-called best practices must be adapted to fit different socio-political, economic, cultural, and political environments (Mok, 2018a, 2018b).

Collaboration Matters for Bay Economy Area Development With the recent advancement of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development strategy, higher education cooperation has received increasing and much-needed attention from social scientists as well as policy makers. The chapters in this section contribute to this conversation. In Chap. 5, Liang focuses on higher education cooperation in the GBA. Liang analyzes the content of 65 policy texts involving higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao since 2003. Her review shows that overall policy changes in higher education cooperation are consistent with China’s national strategic development. Specifically, the discursive objectives of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies have evolved from ‘secondary’ to ‘important’, the content of the topics has evolved from ‘monistic’ to ‘multiple’, and the guaranteed tools of policy development and implementation have evolved from ‘simple’ to ‘complex’. Liang’s research shows the importance of collaboration across university campuses in the GBA. Drawing comparative insights from other bay-area economies in which strong clusters of universities significantly contribute to research, knowledge transfer, and innovationcentered entrepreneurship (Douglass, in this volume), the Chinese government is keen to facilitate universities in Hong Kong and Macau to engage in deep cooperation with universities in Guangdong through joint research laboratories, collaborative programs, or branch campuses (Jiang & Mok, 2019; Sharma, 2021). Even as the higher-education policy discourse in the GAB becomes more integrated, the roles of Hong Kong and Shenzhen in particular has received greater attention. In Chap. 8, Kevin Chandra, Jue Wang, Coco Du, Weizhen Ding and Xun

1 The Role of Higher Education, Innovation …

7

Wu maintain that, given Hong Kong’s unique ‘one country, two systems’ institutional configuration and special autonomy status, the city plays a potentially pivotal role in future higher-education development strategies in relation to specific GBA initiatives, particularly in enhancing economic, technological, and innovation linkages between Mainland China and the rest of the world. Shenzhen, as Hong Kong’s northern neighbor, has been a particular inspiration for the GBA given the phenomenal success it has achieved in economic innovation in a historically short period of time. Based upon the publication, patent, and entrepreneurship activity data in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, Chandra, et al., show a complementary relationship between innovation resources in these cities. Their findings suggest that a deeper collaboration between institutions of higher-education in Hong Kong and Shenzhen—without unnecessary and unhealthy competition—would promote more synergetic collaborations, producing win–win outcomes for GBA development. However, whether people across the region and governments across city borders can engage in deep and productive cooperation requires trust. Here, too, institutions of higher education may be able to help by addressing the cultural and social-psychological aspects of regional integration. Against the context of the integration and development of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, Ke Jin Zhu, Jin Yuan Ma and Yi Cao set out in Chap. 6 to examine the correlation between local industrial ecosystems and student enrolments in specific university disciplines. Adopting a quantitative Pearson correlation approach, they seek to understand the magnitude and strength of the relationship between university enrolments by discipline and industrial structures in the Greater Bay Area. Their most significant empirical result suggests a complementarity between regions of the Greater Bay Area, as the overall number of science and engineering graduates from universities in Hong Kong exceeds the demands of Hong Kong industry, whereas the science and engineering graduates from universities in Guangdong Province cannot satisfy the needs of its secondary industries. Thus, universities in Hong Kong may be able to support Guangdong’s need for science and engineering graduates. However, the cities of Guangdong are not the primary choice of residence for most Hong Kong graduates, who may require incentives to relocate to Guangdong cities. Such findings are consistent with Mok’s prior research, which shows that Hong Kong high-school graduates choose to continue their higher education in Mainland China when they are provided different incentives—such as fast-track admissions and tuition fee reductions or waivers (Mok, 2018b). In the context of the Chinese government’s GBA development strategy, higher education institutions in the GBA already have received policy support to foster economic integration. In Chap. 7, Taoli Wang finds that Hong Kong boasts highly ranked universities and abundant resources to support advanced education; Macao enjoys a free economic and trade environment, unique international trade, and Portuguese intermediary advantages; and Guangdong’s industry is developing rapidly, which in the future could provide ample financial support for scientific and technological advancements as well as employment opportunities for university graduates. In view of the differences in the historical traditions, management systems,

8

K. H. Mok

and development levels of higher education in the three regions, building worldclass universities in the GBA will require thoughtful collaboration (Xie et al., 2020). Universities in the region should explore exchanges and cooperation programs so they can gradually improve their international influence and global competitiveness. Altogether, the four chapters in this section demonstrate that planned collaboration will be essential if the GBA project is to be a success. Since the strengths of different bay-area cities are different, they can complement one another in future development (Kang & Jiang, 2020).

Factors Shaping Internal Migration Across the GBA One of the factors contributing to the success of bay-area economies is whether they can attract and retain young talents from around the world to work and live. In view of other bay-area economies’ experiences, one common success factor is a critical mass of universities and research institutions, which can provide important platforms for highly talented young people to mingle and interact around research projects and knowledge-transfer activities. In Chap. 11, Mok, Zhang and Bao critically examine how Chinese international students have pursued their career objectives amid the unprecedented global health crisis resulting from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using an online survey conducted by the Future Education Management Research Center of Peking University and Gui Guo Quan in November 2019, they show a reverse trend of Chinese international students choosing to return to Mainland China for their career development. Based on the findings of the survey, this chapter analyses whether these highly skilled and well-educated youth with international education would choose to work in the GBA—a strategic priority for the Chinese government. They note a growing trend whereby returnees prefer to embark on their development pathways in Beijing or Shanghai, followed by the cities of Guangdong, and the implications of this preference for regional, national, and even global talent mobility. According to Mok, Zhang and Bao’s analysis, the preferred provinces and regions for the employment of high-level talents are highly concentrated in economically developed provinces, specifically China’s municipalities directly under the management of the central government. In this survey, no high-level graduates chose to work in seven provinces, including Guizhou, Yunnan, Gansu, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Xinjiang. Notably, although the level of economic development in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan is relatively high, the proportion of high-level talents who have studied abroad and who prefer to work in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan was only 0.5%. In fact, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan were far less attractive to high-level talents abroad than Guangdong Province, which shows that a great differentiation exists within the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area. Mok, Zhang and Bao’s analysis, referring to other studies regarding young people’s preference to work in the GBA, have clearly shown the impact of psychological distance being shared among young professionals when choosing the destinations

1 The Role of Higher Education, Innovation …

9

for work and internal migration in the country. The phrase psychological distance refers to subjective experiences in relation to objects that are temporally, spatially, or socially far away as perceived by people when making migration decisions (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Such findings are highly relevant for central and local governments in China as they introduce measures not only to provide economic incentives but also to address students’ socio-psychological concerns as they manage the transition from higher education to work (Zhu & Mok, 2021; Zhu et al., 2021). The accumulation of human capital is crucial to the economic development of a region, and in this process, PhD graduates play a very important role. In Chap. 9, Dandong Xu and Wenqin Shen use a national doctoral graduate survey from 2016 to understand which factors influence the inter-provincial employment mobility of PhD graduates. Notably, Xu and Shen analyze the inflow and outflow of PhD graduates in Guangdong. Results show a geographical effect on doctoral employment: if the student’s PhD institution is in the same place as the student’s pre-degree college or residence, the possibility of doctoral employment in this region increases considerably. If possible, PhD graduates prefer to return to their hometowns to work. The study also finds that over 65% of PhD graduates are employed in higher-education institutions (a result that supports the important role of higher-education institutions in the employment of PhD graduates). Thus, although Guangdong Province has a certain degree of attraction for PhD graduates, its insufficient number of high-level universities creates difficulty in the recruitment of PhD graduates compared with more educationally developed regions. So, even if PhD graduates want to move to Guangdong—and even if they come from there—they may not be able to find employment. Based upon their findings, Xu and Shen conclude that Guangdong Province needs to pay more attention to the recruitment of PhD graduates through the construction of high-level universities in the region. Their analysis supports the conclusions of Mok, Zhang and Bao’s chapter. Recognizing the importance of attracting and retaining talents for future development, many government policies seek to eliminate barriers to entrepreneurship by providing financial supports. Such policies may have different success in different places, however, given different cultural normal. In Chap. 10, Yuyang Kang uses research from Shenzhen to show the need to create a fair ecosystem for entrepreneurship in the GBA. Influenced by previous unpleasant experiences of guanxi practices in other regions, young entrepreneurs sometimes have negative perceptions of networking, which can constrain their ability to forge ties identified as essential for entrepreneurial success. A long-standing building block of Chinese culture, guanxi has been criticised for leading to corruption and bribery (Dunfee & Warren, 2001; Li, 2018). Shenzhen, however, is appraised by Kang’s study participants as a city where guanxi plays a less significant role. The relatively fair institutional environment, together with an open social environment, have helped position Shenzhen emerge as an innovation centre favoured by university graduates who hope to become young entrepreneurs. Importantly, Kang’s chapter throws light on cultural—and, specifically, gender—aspects of guanxi when reflecting upon how different kinds of social relationships affect young graduate entrepreneurs in Shenzhen as they pursue

10

K. H. Mok

innovation-centric entrepreneurship. Men have more success than women. The findings of Kang’s research offer useful insights for other cities in the GBA as they push to make the GBA a higher-education hub as well as a globally competitive social, commercial, and cultural development zone.

Opportunities and Challenges for GBA: Young People’s Perspectives In recent years, the role of higher education in GBA regional development has attracted increasing attention from researchers. Two years ago, to understand how young people in Hong Kong perceive and evaluate development opportunities within the GBA, Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and South China University of Technology in Guangzhou established the Joint Research Centre for Greater Bay Area— Social Policy and Governance to facilitate exchange and research activities related to development policy in the region. In 2019, the Joint Research Centre conducted a survey in Hong Kong to examine how young people evaluate development opportunities in the GBA (Mok, 2019). The survey was conducted between March and April 2019 through a web-based questionnaire targeting two separate groups: a group of 1,214 Hong Kong residents aged between 18 and 35 (young residents), and a group of 472 local university students. The findings revealed that more than half (50.9%) of the young residents showed positive attitudes towards development in the GBA, compared with 45% (44.8%) of the university students. At the same time, over half of respondents in each group (both are 51.0%) deemed the participation of Hong Kong in the GBA a valuable opportunity for development. In short, this survey preliminarily showed that many young residents and university students agreed that GBA development would bring them benefits and opportunities (Joint Research Centre, 2019). Nonetheless, young people’s positive evaluations of regional development may not lead to employment pursuits in the GBA. When asked whether they were willing to stay and work in the GBA, only 35% of respondents in both groups said yes. Around 20% of the young residents and 30% of the university students said “Do not know/Cannot comment”, demonstrating their wait-and-see attitude towards working in the GBA (Joint Research Centre, 2019). When asked about the sectors in which they would consider working, young residents’ three most cited sectors were “Innovation and technology” (45.6%), “Finance” (45.5%) and “Professional services” (35.9%). University students cited similar sectors: “Finance” (22.8%), “Innovation and technology” (18.5%) and “Cultural and creative industries” (16.5%) (Joint Research Centre, 2019). When asked whether their willingness to work in the GBA would change in light of the new policy regarding preferential income tax treatment for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan residents working in the GBA, around 40% (38.4%) of respondents in the young resident group said it would, but a slightly greater number (38.9%) said it

1 The Role of Higher Education, Innovation …

11

would not. For the university student group, just over 20% (22.7%) said that tax policy would make them more willing to work in the GBA, but almost 40% (39.1%) said it would not (Joint Research Centre, 2019). Many respondents worried about working in the GBA. Of all respondents in the young resident group and the university student group, 67% (67.2%) and over 55% (56.9%) respectively worried that they could not find suitable jobs or would face unwanted restrictions or taxes. The three most cited worries of young residents were “Unsatisfactory salary” (78.2%), “internet restrictions” (e.g., unable to browse Google domains) (76.6%), and high tax rates (65.8%). The university students cited “internet restrictions” (80.2%), “Education for children” (71.3%), and “Unsatisfactory salary” (70.7%) as their greatest concerns (Joint Research Centre, 2019). A previous survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong reported that the major concerns of people in Hong Kong considering whether to work in the GBA were: (1) internet restrictions; (2) inconvenience in transport; (3) food safety (CUHK, 2018). In short, when contemplating work in the GBA, the concerns raised by the young resident group and the university student group clearly indicated that economic incentives alone cannot attract young people from Hong Kong to move across the border for work in the GBA (Mok, 2019). The major barriers, according to this survey, are more related to freedom in browsing the internet, education for children, and jobs that they prefer. Salary and compensation package were only one of the factors they weighed when considering plans to work in the GBA (Joint Research Centre, 2019). Other studies regarding Hong Kong young peoples’ evaluations of GBA development opportunities and challenges report similar findings. Although most of the respondents in these surveys show their interests in working in the GBA, many of them identify worries related to an unstable policy environment, the difficulties of adapting to a very different business environment, the legal system, and the tax regime of the Mainland (The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, 2019). The findings generated from the above surveys clearly show that offering economic incentives alone is insufficient to attract and retain young talents to work and stay in the GBA. Drawing comparative insights from other bay-area economies, it seems that persuading people to work and stay in bay areas must take not only economic factors but also other social, cultural, and political factors into consideration. International literature related to migration from more to less cosmopolitan areas suggests the importance of emotional attachments to places where young people decide to live and work. In addition, social and cultural ties in the destination site also shape the migration motivation (Taima & Asami, 2020). “Psychological distance” may influence young people’s decisions to work in the GBA, as indicated by the case of Hong Kong youth (Zhu et al., 2021). Hence, the social, cultural, political, and psychological perspectives should be considered when introducing measures to attract young people to migrate to the GBA for work. One point which deserves attention for governments based in the GBA when attracting, recruiting, and retaining young talents is how young people evaluate contemporary geo-political factors, especially for young people from Hong Kong after experiencing the social unrest since 2019. Previous surveys examining young people’s intentions to work in the GBA have shown concerns related to life-style,

12

K. H. Mok

but we should not underestimate their social psychology when calculating the risk and benefit of migrating from Hong Kong for career development in the GBA. The changing Hong Kong and Mainland China relationship right after the enactment of National Security Law may create disincentives for young people from Hong Kong to venture into the GBA development.

Conclusion The GBA could offer great development opportunities, but putting the major arguments of this volume together and drawing development experiences from other major bay economies, the future development of the GBA is likely to face a number of challenges. Governments and universities in the GBA cannot convince university graduates to choose to work and live in the GBA purely with economic incentives. International research related to internal migration from more cosmopolitan to fewer cosmopolitan areas shows that young people will require social support and emotional attachments. Moreover, in the university sector, the higher education resources of the three regions (Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong) have not yet been fully integrated. Going forward, a Bay Area University Alliance should be developed to enhance the talent–research–industrial cooperation mechanism, broaden funding sources for universities, improve their environment for research and innovation, and accelerate the conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements, thus gradually forming a virtuous ecological cycle of industry–university–research cooperation and employment opportunities. At the same time, the GBA needs to be involved actively in the trend of internationalization of higher education, and both Hong Kong and Macau can facilitate such a process. Most importantly, the role of universities in bay-area economies goes well beyond only the production of human capital and innovation. Universities can also promote democratic values within their communities (Florida, 2017; see also Nelson’s discussion in this volume). Beyond the role of higher education in supporting the GBA’s ambitions for innovation-cantered entrepreneurship, the governments and leaders in the GBA must adopt policies and measures appropriate for attracting talents from diverse backgrounds to move to the bay area for work and persuading them to stay and set up their families. The research presented in this book clearly shows that economic incentives are not sufficient to attract and retain talented young people to migrate to the GBA. The many attractions that other bay-area economies have offered to global talent mobility offer China useful comparative perspectives. A “Bay Area” can serve not only as an international business centre but also as a major global cultural hub (bay areaeconomy.org), but to achieve that aim, the governments in the GBA must pay specific attention to cultural, socio-economic, socio-psychological, and even geopolitical factors as they develop policies to appeal to global talents to join the GBA development project. Can the GBA offer an environment that is appealing to global talents from diverse cultural and social backgrounds? The answer to this question will determine the future success of the GBA.

1 The Role of Higher Education, Innovation …

13

References Cai, Z. Q. (2021, March 30). Valuable perspectives on your life and career from Chinese philosophical and historical texts. Paper presented to the Chair Professor Research Sharing Seminar Series. Lingnan University. CUHK. (2018). Report on the Hong Kong Citizens’ evaluation of development opportunities in the greater bay area, China. Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, CUHK. Douglass, J. A., & King, C. J. (2018). The role of universities in economic competitiveness in California. ACUP. Dunfee, T. W., & Warren, D. E. (2001). Is guanxi ethical? A normative analysis of doing business in China. Journal of Business Ethics, 32(3), 191–204. Florida, R. (2017). How universities foster economic growth and democracy. Bloomberg CityLab. Published online on 7 November 2017. GBA Plan. (2019). Outline development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau greater bay area. Hong Kong: Hong Kong SAR government. Hou, Y. C., Chiang, T. L., & Chan, S. J. (Eds.). (2020). Higher Education in Taiwan. Springer. Ji, J., & Pan, F. (2021). Comparison between the economies of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other bay areas of the world. In S. P. Guo (Ed.), Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area: Planning and Global Positioning. World Scientific. Jiang, J., & Mok, K. H. (2019). Asserting global leadership in higher education: Governance with strong government in China. In D. Jarvis & K. H. Mok (Eds.), Transformations in Higher Education Governance in Asia. Springer. Joint Research Centre. (2019). A survey on Hong Kong young people and university students’ perceptions of development opportunity and challenge in the greater bay area. Press Report, October 2019. Kang, Y. Y., & Jiang, J. (2020). Revisiting the innovation systems of cross-border cities: The role of higher education institution and cross-boundary cooperation in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 42(2), 213–229. Li, L. (2018). The moral economy of guanxi and the market of corruption: Networks, brokers and corruption in China’s courts. International Political Science Review, 39(5), 634–646. Liu, J. (2021). China steps up efforts to poach Nobelists, but will it pay off? Times Higher Education. Published on 4 March 2021. Liu, K. (2019). China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau greater bay area: A primer. The Copenhagan Journal of Asian Studies, 37(1), 36–56. Marginson, S. (2018). National/global synergy in the development of higher education and science in China since 1978. Frontiers Education in China, 13(4), 486–512. Marginson, S. (2020). Pluralisation of research power is diversifying science. University World News. Published on 17 October 2020. Mok, K. H. (2018a, October 19–20). Promoting regional cooperation for the Bay economy development in South China: Policy implications for Hong Kong and Macau. Paper presented to the International Symposium of Contesting Globalization and Implications for Asian Pacific Higher Education: Resurgent Nationalism in International Higher Education. Lingnan University. Mok, K. H. (2018b). Promoting national identity through higher education and graduate employment: Reality in the responses and implementation of government policy in China. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 40(6), 583–597. Mok, K. H. (2019, September). Calling for regional development and collaboration: Young people’s perceptions and evaluations of the development opportunity in the greater bay area in South China. Paper presented to the International Symposium on Regional Development and Implications for Higher Education and Social Cohesion at National Chengchi University. Mok, K. H., Welch, A., & Kang, Y. Y. (2020). Government innovation policy and higher education: The case of Shenzhen, China. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 42(2), 194–212.

14

K. H. Mok

Sharma, Y. (2021). So many new universities: Where will the staff come from? University World News. Published on 13 March 2021. Taima, M., & Asami, Y. (2020). Determinants and policies of native metropolitan young workers’ migration toward non-metropolitan areas in Japan. Cities, 102. Published online on 20 April 2020. The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. (2019). Hong Kong Youth’s Perceptions of Development Opportunity in the Greater Bay Area, China. The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463. Xie, A., Postiglione, G., & Huang, Q. (2020). The Greater Bay Are (GBA) development strategy and its relevance to higher education. ECNU Review of Education. Published online on 11 November 2020. Yu, T. (2019). The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau greater bay area in the making: Development plan and challenges. Cambridge Review of International Affairs. Published online on 23 October 2019. Zeng, H. (2018). The flow of talented people policy in the European Union and the enlightenment to the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau greater bay are. Scientific Management Research, 36, 89–92. (in Chinese). Zhu, Y. F., & Mok, K. H. (2021). Integrating Hong Kong Residents into Greater Bay Area Cities: Evaluating a Conceptual Model. Unpublished manuscript under review. Zhu, Y. F., Mok, K. H., & Huang, G. H. (2021). Migrating to GBA cities in mainland China: Assessing a model of psychological distance among Hong Kong working adults. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. Published online on 28 January 2021.

Website Materials https://www.bayarea.gov.hk/filemanager/en/share/pdf/Outline_Development_Plan.pdf https://www.bayareaeconomy.org

Part I

Bay Area Development from Comparative and Historical Perspectives

Chapter 2

Higher Education and Human Capital and in the “New York Bay Area”: Historical Lessons from the City University of New York (CUNY) Adam R. Nelson Abstract The City University of New York (CUNY), now a network of twentyfive campuses that educate nearly half of all university students in the New York metropolitan area (with more than half a million degree- and non-degree-seeking students every year), plays a crucial role in the regional development of human capital. But the university’s mission has evolved over time in response to economic and demographic changes, as well as shifts in the city’s higher-education market. This chapter traces CUNY’s history over 150 years, with particular attention to its students’ national and racial backgrounds, their political activism, and their debates over the extension of higher-education access to more and more students (including those with poor preparation for college-level work). The chapter seeks to illustrate (a) how broad historical events affect the evolution of higher-education systems, (b) how “proactive” and “reactive” institutional planning often leads to similar results, (c) how mass higher education involves seemingly insuperable fiscal challenges, and (d) how a university created to foster social mobility among less-privileged students attempts to stay true to that mission in a context of financial ups and downs and increasingly globalized competition. Based on primary as well as secondary materials, this chapter aims to provide a broad institutional history in narrative form, not a social-science analysis. Keywords Human capital · Immigrant students · Social mobility · Political activism · Academic freedom · City University of New York

Introduction With twenty-five campuses—including two-year, four-year, and postgraduate schools—the City University of New York (CUNY) is the largest system of higher education in New York City. In fact, 46% of all university students in New York attend A. R. Nelson (B) University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. H. Mok (ed.), Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6_2

17

18

A. R. Nelson

CUNY, which enrolls more than half a million degree- and non-degree students every year. How did it come to play such an important role in human-capital development in the United States’ largest city? Most histories of CUNY fall into two broad categories. The first emphasizes its students’ immigrant backgrounds and eagerness for education. Whether from German or Irish origins during the mid-nineteenth century, Russian or Ukrainian origins during the late nineteenth century, or Latin American and East Asian origins during the late twentieth century, CUNY’s students have always been “international” and highly motivated toward social mobility. The second category of CUNY histories emphasizes its students’ liberal, or leftist, politics, especially their concern for worker rights, racial justice, and non-discrimination; their advocacy of academic freedom and civil liberties; and their willingness to mobilize larger political coalitions in New York City (and beyond) in support of these values. What connects the university’s service to immigrant students, its social-justice orientation, and the role of higher education in human-capital development? The answer may lie, in part, in CUNY’s location and its socio-political geography. While the story of CUNY has been told many times, no one has interpreted the institution’s history from a “bay area” point of view. Yet, while its neighbors Columbia and New York University have received attention for their global reach, CUNY has been no less internationalized, even if, like its counterparts, its approach to “internationalization” has evolved over time. The history below shows how CUNY’s contributions to human-capital development reflects its geographic location and its enduring commitment to members of the immigrant working classes. Indeed, from a perspective of human-capital development, CUNY’s history reveals its unique contribution not only to economic growth in New York City but also to a global mission of educational opportunity and social justice.

Historical Origins: Finding a Market Niche, c. 1840 CUNY’s history began in the 1840s, but to place its establishment in context, one needs to start a decade earlier, in the 1830s, when New York had two institutions of higher education. The oldest, Columbia, was founded in 1753 by wealthy merchants who believed New York would someday become a major hub of transatlantic commerce (as it did).1 By the 1830s, however, Columbia had fallen on hard times, with an outdated curriculum and low enrollments. Sensing an opportunity, a group of educational modernizers had taken steps to establish a rival institution, New York University (NYU), with a more scientific curriculum to prepare students for leadership in a society that was just starting to industrialize. During the previous decade, the famous Erie Canal had connected an interior agricultural economy with New York City, a major port, and by the 1830s an extensive set of branch canals had made the 1

See Humphrey (1976) and Whitehead (1973).

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

19

city a commercial and financial center. As new banks lent money to new industrial enterprises, New York diversified its economic base and saw a new demand for manufacturers, managers, and “men of science.”2 New York University addressed this need and lured students away from Columbia, which, at one point, told New York’s city council that, if taxpayers supplied it with facilities to match those at its competitor, then Columbia would give the city a majority of the seats on its board of trustees and turn itself into a public college. NYU offered a more up-to-date course of study, but its advanced curriculum necessitated relatively high tuition fees. Its founders did not have independent resources (aside from a modest share of the state’s Literature Fund), so the students had to foot the bill. This situation created an opening for a lower-cost public option. Herein lay the roots of CUNY.3 In 1846, when Townsend Harris, a real-estate broker and importer of Chinese porcelain, was elected president of New York’s four-year-old Board of Education, he said he was stunned that a city of 500,000 residents had only two colleges with a total of 247 students. He joined the city’s Workingmen’s Association to call for a “Free Academy” to serve New York’s immigrant workers. This was an era of new scientific schools—the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, and others—as well as new workers’ education programs abroad. It was an era when the U.S. economy was industrializing, and students wanted access to more “practical” education. Colleges nationwide experimented with new ways to offer applied mechanical instruction to members of the working classes.4 Harris, who had little formal education, sought to meet this demand. “Let the children of the rich and the poor take their seats together and know of no distinction save that of industry and intellect,” he said as contemporaries looked forward to a Free Academy that would show how “an institution of the highest grade” could be run “by the popular will, not by the privileged few.” The academy—supported by the city’s Tammany Hall political bosses—was expected to serve poor immigrant students whose parents comprised Tammany’s main constituents. While opposed by elites on grounds that wealthy citizens should not have to fund higher education for the poor, the Free Academy was approved in a referendum by a vote of 19,305-to3,409. It was considered a contribution to human-capital development to meet the needs of a modern industrial economy.5 Horace Webster, a West Point graduate, became the school’s first principal. Of the 408 students who applied for admission during its first year, 202 (all male) were accepted. Thereafter, admissions tests were administered twice a year, and local schools competed to send their most talented students, chosen on the basis of test scores or class rank at New York’s public high schools. The academy focused on nine fields of study: history, languages and literatures, moral and intellectual philosophy, and law and political economy, as well as mathematics, chemistry and 2

Dim (2001). Rudy (1949). See also Cosenza (1925). 4 Rudy. 5 https://www.cuny.edu/about/history/origins-and-formative-years/; Rudy, 21. 3

20

A. R. Nelson

physics, natural and experimental philosophy, and civil engineering. In an era of “common-school reform,” many of its graduates took jobs as teachers in the city’s over-filled classrooms. This nexus between lower and higher education created a productive feedback loop for human-capital development.6

Early Years: High-Quality, Low-Cost Education Garners International Attention, c. 1850 Townsend Harris saw a link between immigration and education in the fast-growing city of New York; put another way, he saw what later higher-education planners would call a “knowledge production system,” in which primary and secondary schools fed students into New York’s three institutions of higher learning: Columbia, NYU, and the Free Academy. Here was the basic (essential) foundation of a system of higher education for human-capital development. Hopes ran high for New York’s new school, which promised high quality education at low cost. In this period, the average cost per student for a college education was over $150 per year, but when the Free Academy opened in 1849, full-time enrollment cost the city only $65.91 per year (if the cost of books and paper was removed, it cost only $58.24, or 30% of competitors’ rates). The cost to students was $0, and the city’s residents were proud of their school. In 1850, the academy celebrated its first anniversary. “We hail its establishment as the beginning of a system of free collegiate education which soon will prevail throughout our land,” remarked president Alexander Stewart Webb (who succeeded Webster). “We believe the period is not far distant when the chief pride and ornament of New York will be its Free University for All.”7 Erastus Benedict, who had succeeded Townsend Harris as president of the city’s Board of Education, placed the school in the broad sweep of national economic development. The United States had joined “the greatest nations on earth,” Benedict said as he alluded to recent territorial expansion via the Mexican War and the California gold rush, as well as the increased precious-metals trade with China. “What are to be the changes of the next 25 years?” he asked. “Long before that time, this city will be the center of the world, with daily mails to every continent and news from the ends of the earth.” He added: “Spanning 17 degrees of latitude and 50 degrees of longitude, [the United States] has become the nearest maritime neighbor of the Oriental world and the islands of the Pacific.” The Free Academy was to prepare the city’s workers for that future.8 As he spoke, Benedict may well have been thinking about Townsend Harris, who, after the establishment of the Free Academy, had left New York for San Francisco— via Cape Horn—on a commercial voyage. He then sailed to Asia, where he visited 6

Rudy, 29. Rudy, 47, 63. 8 Benedict (1850, 28–29). 7

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

21

the Philippines in 1850, Indonesia and Malaysia in 1851, Singapore in 1852, Hong Kong in 1853, and India and Sri Lanka in 1854. Townsend became acting U.S. consul-general at Ningpo in China in 1855, and then, after the United States forcibly opened trade with Japan, accepted president Franklin Pierce’s nomination to make him U.S. consul-general at Edo-Tokyo, a post he occupied for the next half-decade. His international experience reflected the path of the Free Academy, which, in these same years, had begun to attract international attention.9 As college historian S. Willis Rudy notes, “A steady stream of visitors poured through the college’s portals,” from Japan, India, Mexico, and Chile, not to mention England, Scotland, France, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, and Russia (according to Rudy, a “Professor of Latin from Moscow declared himself as being very much pleased with the college”). Nineteen-year-old Albert Edward, Prince of Wales—born the year Britain seized control of Hong Kong—visited the Free Academy in 1860, followed by an Oxford don in 1864 who said during his visit: “We have heard of you at Oxford” (to which president Webb pithily replied, “We have heard of Oxford here”). An institution of higher education in a global “bay area” needed an international reputation, and the Free Academy quickly developed one.10 Rudy cited M. Charles Bigot, a French journalist who praised the academy in the Revue Bleue and noted its effectiveness not only in mechanical but also in classical instruction. Bigot lauded the Free Academy’s success and its selectivity—particularly its system of “examination and elimination,” which purged less able students. He lamented that lycees in France “could not do as well.” At the same time, some expressed concern that 95% of students who attended the Free Academy did not finish degrees because they left the school voluntarily or involuntarily before their course was complete. By the end of the 1850s, 2,455 students had taken classes at the academy but only 135 had taken degrees. The academy insisted, however, that its purpose was to offer a chance for advanced study—not a guaranteed credential.11 One consequence of its system of “examination and elimination” was that most students who took degrees came not so much from the immigrant labor classes but, principally (though not exclusively), from the city’s middle classes. Everett Wheeler of the Class of 1856 noted that his classmates were “sons of merchants, ministers, lawyers, doctors, and in many cases laborers, men who were ambitious that their sons should have every opportunity the liberal city offered.” To help immigrant students, in 1857, alumni of the academy founded a Student’s Aid Fund with loans to help members of the working classes enter middle-class professions—and they did. By the early 1860s, most of the academy’s graduates were teachers (52), clerks (42), lawyers (33), physicians (19), ministers (19), engineers (7), merchants (7), bookkeepers (6), or architects (5). Here were the early stages of higher education for human-capital development.12

9

See Dennett (1922) and see also Crow (1939). Rudy, 65, 157. 11 Rudy, 66, 157. 12 Rudy, 68, 82. 10

22

A. R. Nelson

Institutional Growth: Immigrant Students, Social Mobility, and Political Activism, c. 1870 While the growth of the academy slowed during the Civil War, its expansion resumed thereafter. In 1866, the state legislature gave the school permission for a new name, the College of the City of New York (CCNY), and in 1869, it added its first branch campus: a Normal College for teacher education that extended the institution’s mission to women for the first time. Curricular diversification continued. Two years later, in 1871, in response to increasing demand for more practical courses in modern business and finance, CCNY launched a one-year Commercial Course “as an acceptable alternative to a Classical Course,” and in 1873, it offered new courses in engineering supported by a “workshop method” of instruction. As earlier, most students took courses in business and engineering without taking degrees, and especially after the arrival of an economic recession in 1873–1877, a number of elitist critics said that city taxpayers should not be expected to subsidize a school where students did not finish the course of study. In 1877, they urged the state to close the school—the first of many such attempts.13 But the school had a very strong political constituency, which defended its mission. “It is lamented that so few find it convenient to complete the course,” agreed J. G. Holland, president of the Board of Education, “but it is a great thing for the young men—and a great thing for the city—that such a multitude can spend two or more years upon the higher studies and among the inspiring and elevating associations of college life.” Holland noted that CCNY’s annual cost per student was far lower than Columbia, NYU, Union, or Hamilton (the state’s other colleges), and in the 1870s more than 50,000 people in New York signed petitions to save the college. It survived after it agreed to remove a requirement that all applicants must attend New York’s public schools for at least a year; thereafter, applicants could prepare in parochial (religious) schools as well. In this way, it won support from new groups of immigrants who belonged to religious minorities.14 During the 1870s and 1880s, both City College and its Normal College served a rapidly growing population of immigrant students. A cholera epidemic in Lithuania, a famine in Poland, a pogrom in the Ukraine, and violent repression of Jews in Russia after the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881 drew millions to New York and eventually led their children to attend City College. That year, Jewish student editors of the CCNY Free Press castigated the rival College Mercury for its criticism “of the Semitic race,” a defense that reflected a larger debate in the city about Russian Jewish immigrants and their alleged political radicalism. In 1878, CCNY students had debated “whether communism would have an evil effect upon the republican institutions of the United States,” and in 1882 a socialist workers’ club asked “Should Chinese immigration be prohibited?” City College served large numbers of Jewish immigrant students, and with its focus on higher education for 13 14

Rudy, 164, 171. Rudy, 117, 123.

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

23

human-capital development, it wanted to prepare them for economic integration as well as cultural assimilation.15 This mission became more complicated over time. In the late nineteenth century, an increasing number of CCNY’s immigrant students’ political views were socialist or communist, even as their counterparts at Columbia and NYU embraced more conservative positions on the major political issues of the day—particularly “the labor question” (the well-being of industrial workers) and the expansion of western imperialism around the world. Some of New York City’s wealthiest taxpayers asked why they should fund CCNY, given its students’ leftist politics. This issue came to a head during the late 1880s when CCNY needed money for a new campus. At the time, all three of the city’s institutions of higher education sought to escape the overcrowded mid-town section of the city for sites further north. Some asked: should taxpayers fund a new campus for City College?

Higher Education, Secondary Education, and Human-Capital Development, c. 1900 In 1889, Columbia discussed a move north to Morningside Heights, and in 1891, NYU bought land at Fordham Heights (after which Columbia bought its own tract nearby). Columbia began construction in 1894 and NYU in 1895 (both with private funds), but CCNY’s move still needed approval from the state legislature. The legislature resisted CCNY’s growth. It said primary and secondary education needed help more than higher education did, but CCNY countered with a publicity campaign to show its service to the city’s immigrants. Finally, when the city’s leadership changed hands, CCNY got the approval it needed, and the state authorized $11,750,000 for a beautiful new campus at St. Nicholas Heights. This vote coincided with other changes in New York City, which, between 1870 and 1900, had grown from 1 to 4 million residents and in 1896 had consolidated the five boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Long Island City (later Queens) into one municipality with a federated government—the “super-community” of “Greater New York.” At this point, CCNY played a pivotal role in higher education for human-capital development in the overall New York bay area.16 The new “super-city” got a new school plan, led by Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler, who, as chair of the so-called Committee of 100, placed several new high schools under the authority of a single urban superintendent. The new superintendent was a CCNY graduate—as were 86 of the city’s 280 male publicschools teachers and 16 of it 62 male principals. More than 10% of all CCNY graduates had pursued careers in education, and when the state passed a law that required public-school teachers to have a course in pedagogy, CCNY led the city in this effort. It also discontinued its “sub-freshman” course, turned its work over 15 16

Rudy, 178, 186–187. Rudy, 208–222, 224.

24

A. R. Nelson

to a new set of high schools, and directed its resources increasingly to “advanced” students. Here again was a crucial integration (or “articulation”) of lower and higher education for the sake of human-capital development.17 And yet, as CCNY stepped away from secondary-level instruction, it became more elite. The state now required four years of high school plus four years of college for a B.A. degree, and CCNY reflected this escalation in the credential market. In 1903, the election of a new president, John H. Finley (formerly a professor of politics at Princeton), began a new era in the institution’s history. When president Finley arrived, CCNY was still relatively small, with approximately 800 students. The Class of 1903, for instance, had just 193 graduates. Three years later, however, the situation changed. In 1906, City College moved into a new campus at 135th Street in Harlem—just fifteen blocks north of Columbia’s new campus—and it was able to serve considerably more students. The question was: how would CCNY balance a need to serve more students in a fast-growing city with a desire to raise the quality of higher education it offered?18 It did so through institutional stratification, a strategy that seemed wise at the start but led to a controversy over time. Even as the new campus served a substantially larger number of students, it maintained its selectivity with a policy that relegated less-prepared students to a wide range of “evening schools,” which met from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. five nights a week. In 1909, total enrollment in CCNY’s evening classes was 200; four years later, it was 863. And enrollment continued to grow over time. And yet, unlike students at CCNY itself, students in the evening schools paid tuition: roughly $15 a year on average. Most studied English in pursuit of U.S. citizenship, but some pursued a more rigorous college-preparatory course.19 Evening classes were part of CCNY’s new extension program, which in 1909 established its first branch campus in Brooklyn—the first CCNY branch outside Manhattan and the first to bring CCNY to the greater by area. “We have long been in theory a college for the whole city,” Finley said. “Now, for the first time, we can begin to plan to reach out and take in our own to the uttermost boundaries of the city.” A reporter noted that Finley’s vision for CCNY was “nothing less than making a Mother of Colleges for the five boroughs, in which the young men will be trained in the service ‘of the city, by the city, for the city.’” It was a prescient remark. Though recruited for the presidencies at the University of Michigan in 1909 and Princeton in 1910, he chose to stay in the New York metro area.20 It would be hard to overstate the role City College played in the evolution of New York’s “bay area” into a global knowledge hub. By the early twentieth century, New York was among the largest metropolitan centers in the world, and City College, 17

Rudy, 229; Gorelick (1981). Berrol (1976, p. 262). 19 Berrol, 263; Rudy, 315. See also Gorelick, 32–39. A model for evening classes may have come from the Jewish Educational Alliance and its Breadwinners’ College, launched a decade earlier. Another model was the Kehillah, led by the city’s German Jewish middle class, which offered a wide range of social programs for working-class immigrants. 20 New York Times, March 7, 1913, p. 7. 18

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

25

with an increasingly diversified network of campuses, was its largest institution of higher education and human-capital development. When, in 1907, the German list of learned institutions, The Minerva, named Columbia and NYU but not CCNY, president Finley asked its editors to reconsider their roster. CCNY, he said, was “unique in that its support comes entirely from a municipality, but its requirements for admission and graduation should give it standing with the best institutions of private foundation.” This remark was true, but the system overall was increasingly stratified, as students at CCNY’s main campus received a world-class education for free while students in the branch campus evening program had to pay tuition for only a preparatory education.21

International Connections and Institutional Expansion, c. 1910 CCNY claimed a greater place in the United States’ hierarchy of higher education even as the United States claimed a greater role in the world at large. In 1907, president Finley joined the Japan Society of New York and raised a flag on campus that had flown over the U.S. consulate in Japan during Townsend Harris’s stay. Two years later, in 1909, he received the Insignia of the Imperial Order from the Japanese emperor to recognize his “promotion of friendly relations between Japan and the United States.”22 This recognition had broader geopolitical significance. In the wake of the SinoJapanese War of 1894–1895, the U.S. invasion of the Philippines during the SpanishAmerican War of 1898, the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, and the Boxer Indemnity Scholarships that sent China’s first exchange student to Columbia in 1909, president Finley’s ties with Japan sent a larger signal. But his international ties were not limited to Asia. In the wake of the Spanish-American War, he also visited Cuba in 1899. A decade later, in 1909, he welcomed German ambassador count Johann von Bernstorff to campus. (Of course, imperial Germany recently had leased the port of Qingdao in China and exerted influence across Jiaozhou and the Yellow River Valley.) The history of higher education was not disconnected from the history of geopolitics, perhaps especially in colleges and universities that served internationally connected bay areas.23 In the meantime, in 1909, president Finley invited French ambassador Jules Jusserand for a visit, and in 1910 and 1911, while on sabbatical at the Sorbonne, he lectured on “The French in the Heart of America,” a series of talks on French colonial missionaries in the Mississippi River Valley (where Finley was born and raised). The subject of colonial missionaries was, of course, full of contemporary significance in Asia, where France by the early twentieth century had extended its 21

Rudy, 303. Rudy, 273, 303–304. 23 Rudy, 307. 22

26

A. R. Nelson

reach beyond Shanghai and Tientsin (Tianjin) into Guangzhou and Hankou (now Wuhan) and, still further, into modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Again, it would be impossible to detach the history of higher education and human-capital development from the history of global commerce, politics, and imperialism.24 Like other American colleges and universities during this period, CCNY increasingly saw its educational mission in both international and imperial terms. In 1915, for example, it offered a business course in “The Development of the South American States” to students “who expect to enter into business or professional relations” there. This course was offered in a new College of Commerce and Civil Administration, founded in lower Manhattan in 1913. Like the original City College, the College of Commerce served only men, but the same year, CCNY expanded its Normal School into the renamed Hunter College for Women and built an innovative “teacher clinic” to prepare graduates for jobs in the city’s high schools. The link between practical and commercial education—like the link between lower and higher education for teachers—would remain central to CCNY’s mission of human-capital development throughout its subsequent history.25 Why did CCNY want a College of Commerce and College for Women? In part, because it wanted to compete with NYU, which had launched its own business program in 1900 and had captured a new student market with its admission of women. CCNY wanted a piece of this pie—though its expansion into Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island in 1913 prompted a counter move by NYU. In 1914, NYU established its so-called Washington Square College, which offered an open-enrollment undergraduate program to nontraditional students: women, immigrants, and professionals. One contemporary deemed it “the most exciting venture in American education,” but, really, it was just a way to compete for more students.26 From a “systems” perspective of higher-education development, the competition between CCNY and NYU benefited the increasingly diversified economy of the New York bay area. It not only educated local residents but also drew students into the city from new suburbs. With easy subway access, NYU marketed its Washington Square College to “commuters,” and CCNY did so, too. Both schools wanted to serve as many new immigrant students as possible. At the same time, however, Columbia served a different market. Its students typically came from well-to-do, native-born families. Columbia was also politically conservative. Its trustees owned large corporations, denounced workers’ unions, and decried socialist ideologies. After the outbreak of World War I, they supported military industries that supplied both sides in the conflict. The differences between these institutions shaped the overall higher-education market in New York City and led to new tensions over time.27

24

Rudy, 274–275, 306. Gorelick, 163. 26 Tom Wolfe, quoted at https://www.nyu.edu/faculty/governance-policies-and-procedures/fac ulty-handbook/the-university/history-and-traditions-of-new-york-university/a-brief-history-ofnew-york-university.html. 27 See Gruber (1972). 25

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

27

World War I and Its Wake: Student-Worker Alliances and Stratified Admissions, c. 1920 CCNY’s immigrant students were known for their leftist politics. By and large, they sympathized with the Socialist Party and took a pacifist stance during World War I. Despite a national “preparedness” campaign, many joined the Collegiate AntiMilitarism League, which surveyed 80,000 college students in 1915 and found only 17,000 in favor of compulsory army drills on American campuses. These positions ran the risk of alienating taxpayers who covered the cost of CCNY.28 One anti-war rally at CCNY in 1916 attracted 3,500 undergraduates and ended in a fight (the Socialist Study Club said it was not involved). A year later, in 1917, the College Mercury (now liberal) noted: “By all means let us be loyal to the country. But let us reserve the rights of all civilized beings—the right of thinking, of discussing, of approving or disapproving.” World War I was a political watershed at the college. While the Woodrow Wilson administration said the war had two purposes—to make the world safe for democracy and to protect the freedom of the seas for global commercial integration—socialist-pacificist students at CCNY saw a war to defend western imperialism and capitalism. In response, they called for new global solidarities to unite the working classes of the world. CCNY’s students often had different political ideas than its financial supporters (New York City taxpayers) and, increasingly, different ideas about the relationship between higher education and “human-capital” development.29 After the war, as New York descended into a deep economic recession and mayor John F. Hylan suggested that CCNY should charge tuition in order to save money, the students countered that widespread educational opportunity would hasten economic recovery. They called for more public commitment to free higher education for the sake of broader human-capital development. The question was not only how to pay for CCNY during a recession but also who should pay for it—taxpayers or students themselves? CCNY’s budget was only a small part of New York’s total budget, so the students felt the institution’s value far outstripped its costs. In 1922, when the city spent $351,907,000, CCNY and Hunter together got $1,872,668—or 0.6%—a modest sum in light of their production of human capital. The students’ requests for city aid worked (in part), and in 1925 Hunter College got a new branch in Brooklyn, then home to 35% of CCNY’s students.30 The next year, the city established a Board of Higher Education to plan CCNY’s future growth. Its goal was to balance increased size with increased selectivity, and to cover the costs without imposing tuition on students at the four-year campuses. In the mid-1920s (after Congress passed an Immigration Act that severely restricted Eastern European arrivals), CCNY had raised its academic standards. It required a minimum high-school average of 72% for admission. The branch campuses (which charged 28

Rudy, 346–347. Rudy, 348. 30 Rudy, 359. 29

28

A. R. Nelson

tuition) required much lower averages. Some called this institutional hierarchy a “democratization” of higher education. Others called it discriminatory. As lowerincome students with lower averages were pushed into evening classes that charged tuition, higher-income students with higher scores attended CCNY free-of-charge.31 Why did immigrant students tolerate such a system? Because many of them had no other choice. Admissions quotas at Columbia and NYU restricted the number of Jewish immigrant students in those schools’ undergraduate and graduate programs. (Under these circumstances, Jewish enrollment in the 1920s dropped by 50% in professions such as law, medicine, and dentistry.) Meanwhile, at CCNY, which had no quotas, 80% of the college’s 2,500 students were Jewish. Given the academic success of its Jewish students—many of whom came from poor working-class families— some dubbed City College “the Harvard of the Proletariat.” The fact that CCNY was free while Columbia and NYU charged tuition made it attractive to New York’s most academically talented immigrant youth. Moreover, as its nickname suggested, CCNY also became a center of political debate.32 Debate centered on workers’ rights, immigrant assimilation, and American imperialism. A specific point of contention was the presence of the army’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) on campus. A continuation of the Student Army Training Corps that had occupied U.S. campuses during World War I, the ROTC and its related Military Science Department oversaw compulsory military drills in which all students were required to participate. In 1925, students at CCNY followed the lead of students at the University of Wisconsin and voted 2,092-to-345 to reject these drills. Similar votes occurred at the Universities of Colorado, Washington, Nebraska, and Missouri, as well as the Ohio State University. When the faculty and trustees at CCNY saw that public opinion did not favor the students’ position, however, they retaliated against the students and provoked a battle over academic freedom that lasted for years.33

Activist Students: Anti-militarism, Anti-capitalism, and Anti-fascism, c. 1930 Perhaps it was too much for an internationally oriented institution like CCNY— designed as it was to educate the children of immigrant workers—to expect its students to assimilate uncritically into a modern conservative “white” middle class whose status relied on the undercompensated labor of workers around the world (and indeed the use of force to keep workers in line). Certainly, many CCNY students did not fit that mold. For many leftist students at CCNY, links between higher education and humancapital development could not be dissociated from the plight of workers around the 31

Rudy, 385; Marshak (1982). https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/about/history. 33 Rudy, 406. 32

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

29

world, and, in their view, the U.S. military was a pernicious arm of capitalist imperialism. For a sizable number of immigrant students, protests against military drills went hand in hand with protests against the exploitation of labor and the suppression of civil liberties. CCNY leaders saw things differently, however. In 1927, when a campus stenographer assigned to record student gatherings noted two students’ objections to military drills, they were suspended—a move endorsed unanimously by the faculty. Other student leftists were denied commencement honors, and their extracurricular organizations were surveilled for any discussion of “unconventional” topics. The 1920s brought increasing tension between CCNY’s leftist students and the institution’s administrative leaders (increasingly concerned about the school’s political reputation).34 The debate over required military drills continued after the stock-market crash of 1929, when a student was expelled for his distribution of an “unapproved” handbill in defense of “the working classes.” Friends who rallied to his side were expelled for “disrespectful” activities. In response, the entire staff of The Campus newspaper resigned. Political tension between students and campus leaders escalated during the early years of the Great Depression and finally erupted in 1932 when an evening-school teacher named Oakley Johnson—a self-described Communist—was dismissed (allegedly for “unexcused absences”). A student demonstration brought the New York City police to campus and ended with 16 undergraduate arrests.35 When more than 1,400 students protested this crack-down, CCNY senior administrators suspended 20 (a move sanctioned by the city’s Board of Higher Education), but the rallies did not abate. The next year, 1933, in response to an ROTC event, students argued that CCNY, “one of the world’s largest cultural institutions,” should not “pay homage to the war machine within its cloistered walls.” The students resisted the idea of “human capital” and held that higher education should advance the broader aims of humanity beyond economic production or military mobilization. A student demonstration followed at which CCNY president Frederick Robinson beat several protestors with his umbrella (he said he was attacked first), after which a further 29 students were suspended—including members of the Student Council, the Student Forum, the Social Problems Club, and The Campus newspaper. All told, Robinson’s administration expelled 43 students and suspended 38—a sign that CCNY’s conceptions of higher education for human-capital development had come under fire.36 Robinson, who claimed to represent the interests of “security” in the New York bay area, blamed the unrest on immigrant members of the communist National Student League. He called for a new state law to suppress all “subversive organized activities introduced into colleges against the wishes of those charged with the administration of their affairs as criminal and liable to punishment.” To maintain control—and thus enforce the (increasingly controversial) idea of higher education for human-capital development—Robinson imposed harsh restrictions on all “disreputable” campus 34

Rudy, 409. Rudy, 412, 415. 36 Rudy, 418. See also https://virtualny.ashp.cuny.edu/gutter/panels/panel9.html. 35

30

A. R. Nelson

speech (even though only a small minority of students were disruptive) even as his administration in 1934 welcomed a delegation of 16 students from Italy, sent by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on “an official tour of American institutions of higher learning.”37 When protesters disrupted this visit, another 21 students were suspended. Then, a year later, when Mussolini’s forces invaded Ethiopia, CCNY students requested permission to hold a conference on the subject, but their request was rejected by the administration. In defiance, 1,000 students met anyway and called for an embargo on Italy (as well as the removal of a prohibition on U.S. munitions sales to Ethiopia). As the students launched a war-relief campaign for Ethiopia, they burned a two-headed effigy of Robinson and Mussolini and worked to drive Robinson out—an effort that, in the wake of Robinson’s draconian tactics, now gained the support of alumni, faculty, and staff. By 1935, most faculty had come to see the president’s approach to higher education for human-capital development as dangerously exploitative and undemocratic.38 That year, when the National Student League merged with the socialist Student League for Industrial Democracy, the “Communist Party Unit of City College” printed Teacher-Worker, a monthly newsletter on local, national, and international events. As this publication indicated, by the mid-1930s, CCNY had become a hub of anti-militarist, anti-capitalist, and anti-fascist student activism. It was not alone. Other college students also protested illiberal politics around the world. In the same period, for example, Columbia welcomed German-Jewish refugees such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and other critical theorists from the Frankfurt Institute, an entity that vocally opposed the spread of Nazism across the European continent. CCNY’s immigrant students thus joined a more general movement in the city to sound the alarm over worrisome events abroad.39

Academic Freedom, Anti-authoritarianism, and Anti-racism: A Fight for Tenure, c. 1930 Many of the students at CCNY combined leftist anti-fascism with a full-throated defense of academic freedom. In 1936, after president Robinson abruptly dismissed Morris Schappes, a Communist professor of English, and 12 others, the students occupied Shepard Hall and borrowed a tactic from recent workers’ strikes to hold the nation’s first multi-day college sit-in on behalf of faculty labor rights (a tactic later adopted by the movement for civil rights).40 37

Robinson quoted in the New York Journal and American, November 16, 1934; Rudy, 420. See also Cohen (1993). 38 Rudy, 425; https://cdha.cuny.edu/items/show/4062 and https://cdha.cuny.edu/items/show/4032. 39 https://cdha.cuny.edu/items/show/3642. See also Rudy, 420, and Coulton, 98–148; Kettler and Lauer (2005). 40 Edel (1990).

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

31

The students won. Ultimately, the Board of Higher Education reinstated Schappes and passed stronger tenure rules, in line with those at other New York schools. Vassar College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Union Theological Seminary had given faculty more governance rights, as had other urban universities like the University of Chicago, the University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University in Philadelphia. In the state of Ohio, new faculty rights were granted at the Universities of Toledo and Cincinnati as well as Antioch College, Western Reserve University, and the Ohio State University. Harvard followed suit in 1939 with a Bulletin of the Cambridge Union of University Teachers, which argued that professors should be professionalized rather than proletarianized. Here, the idea of higher education for human-capital development was re-formulated to provide more protections for academic labor.41 Meanwhile, president Robinson had resigned in 1938 along with the deans of the College of Commerce and Administration and the College of Technology (both allies of the president). In the wake of his departure, the Board of Higher Education gave CCNY faculty more voice in departmental leadership, curricular matters, and student discipline. This democratization of CCNY included all members of the staff, tenured and untenured, instructional and non-instructional. It also extended to staff at CCNY’s two newest campuses—Brooklyn College, which had opened in 1930, and Queens College, which opened in 1937—as well as the institution’s School of Education. It seemed clear that higher education for human-capital development could work only if students and faculty were treated less like “capital” and more like human beings entitled to basic human rights and democratic freedoms (including some level of collective self-government within the university itself).42 These reforms had made CCNY a center of student activism, which stretched far beyond the campus. For example, in the fall of 1938, CCNY’s students held a “Save Czechoslovakia” rally to denounce Adolf Hitler’s invasion of that country. The event was attended by senator Vojta Benes, a brother of the Czech president. (For his speech in the Great Hall, the students covered the flags of German universities with black drapes.) More than other institutions in the New York bay area, CCNY allowed students freedom of speech, not only against Mussolini and Hitler but also against the regime of Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator, who had attacked the modern university as a hotbed of liberalism. As fascists rose to power abroad, CCNY students abandoned their earlier socialist-pacificism for liberal interventionism and spoke out strongly against racist authoritarianism everywhere, not least at home.43 As early as 1921, at the start of the famous Harlem Renaissance, students at City College had established a Frederick Douglass Society to condemn domestic racism, but it was not until 1937—two years after a tragic race riot in Harlem— that CCNY hired its first black lecturer, Max Yergan (the president of the National 41

Edel, 86, 89–90. The question of faculty governance had also surfaced in the scholarly literature. Thorstein Veblen had written The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum of the Conduct of Universities by Businessmen in 1918, followed by J. E. Kirkpatrick, The American College and Its Rulers (1926) and the Carnegie Foundation report, The Governance of Higher Education (1935). 42 Edel, 89. 43 Rudy, 454.

32

A. R. Nelson

Negro Congress), to give a course on “Negro History and Culture.” Yergan, who had spent many years in India and South Africa, said the chief purposes of his course were to “disclose the culture of the Negro people and its place in world culture” and to “discuss how Negroes may continue their contributions to cultural progress and strengthening of democracy in America.”44 He lasted a year. When a racist critic said Yergan’s lectures were “subversive,” president Robinson fired him on grounds that CCNY could not afford to alienate public opinion during an economic depression. (The Board of Higher Education threatened to impose fees if a campus ran short of money: library fees, laboratory fees, textbook fees, and diploma fees at graduation.) Apparently, it was a persuasive argument. Just as president Franklin Roosevelt sacrificed racial justice to secure his New Deal legislation, CCNY’s administration often prioritized money over morality: during the Great Depression, as CCNY added Brooklyn College and Queens College but admitted few black students, its budget doubled, from $1,656,763 in 1927 to $3,823,535 in 1938. What to do with these funds became a hotly contested topic as the idea of higher education for human-capital development continued to be a subject of controversy.45

Conservative Reaction at CUNY: The Rapp-Coudert Committee, c. 1940 As conservatism persisted, recently won faculty rights were rolled back in the late 1930s on grounds that CCNY needed to appease public opinion and needed more centralized management to deal with financial strains that stemmed from the depression—and from efforts to unionize CCNY’s faculty and staff. To accomplish these aims, the state launched an anti-leftist investigation of the institution, led by the so-called Rapp-Coudert Committee of 1940.46 Anti-Communist state legislator Frederic Coudert argued that CCNY had been infiltrated by radical communist union advocates who needed to be purged. (As he put it: “if your dog had rabies, you wouldn’t clap him in jail after he had bitten a number of persons—you would put a bullet in his head. It is going to require brutal treatment to handle these [subversive unionist] teachers.”) More than fifty CCNY professors were called before the Rapp-Coudert Committee, and president Harry Wright (who succeeded Robinson) fired eleven (including Morris Schappes) on grounds of suspected Communist Party associations. (The committee’s records eventually ran to over 13,000 pages, including testimony from professors who condemned their colleagues.) An ideological purge had begun, and those who had resisted the idea of higher education for human-capital development were vulnerable to dismissal.47 44

https://virtualny.ashp.cuny.edu/gutter/panels/panel17.html. Coulton, 104; Rudy, 389. 46 Edel, 50–60; Coulton, 140–144. 47 https://virtualny.ashp.cuny.edu/gutter/panels/panel15.html; Coulton, 118. 45

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

33

The committee recorded 712 interviews with 503 witnesses in closed session, followed by fifteen days of open hearings with 88 further witnesses. By and large, the faculty, worried about their positions, cooperated with these investigations (at Brooklyn College, only seven of the 49 professors called before the committee refused to participate), perhaps because it was not the first investigation of its kind. In 1938, the U.S. Congress had created a House Committee on Un-American Activities to investigate “radical” associations; then, in 1940, it passed the Smith Act, which criminalized political affiliations deemed “seditious.” CCNY students, appalled by these attacks on academic freedom, replied with a defense of civil liberties titled “A Charter of Student Rights and Responsibilities.”48 It began: “We go to college, often at great sacrifice, to develop our talents and skills, not [only] to better our individual economic position but also as preparation to contribute toward our whole nation. Youth can best serve democracy by helping to make democracy serve the needs of the American people for economic security, for jobs, for civil rights, for peace.” In a more enlightened view of human-capital development, the students demanded not only a “right to higher education for all, regardless of sex, race, color, or economic status,” but also a right to “speak freely without fear of reprisal,” to “form, join, and support organizations of their own choosing, whether political, cultural, or religious,” and to “print and distribute literature free from censorship.”49 In a publication called Winter Soldiers: A Story of a Conspiracy Against the Schools, the faculty told how the Rapp-Coudert Committee harassed them whenever they criticized bankers who called for “educational austerity” or education solely for worker preparation during the depression. On April 23, 1941, more than 4,000 students at CCNY (most of the student body) protested in support of their embattled professors. Academic freedom—essential for any modern university but particularly one that played such a prominent role in a bay-area knowledge hub—was at risk as the Rapp-Coudert Committee probed not just staff unionization but any criticism of the conservative pro-business state apparatus. Some feared that CCNY’s administration had become hostile to immigrant students from working-class families; others said the college had become hostile to ideas.50 In 1941, the famous black writer Richard Wright penned a foreword to Morris Shappes’s Letters from the Tombs in which he defended academic freedom as the heart of higher education. “Many of our officials believe that they are protecting civilization when they imprison a man for thinking in ‘a certain way,’” Wright wrote, “but they are not protecting their civilization. Instead they are destroying its very foundations.” Some professors—still worried about their jobs—bent over backwards to demonstrate their political loyalty. By 1940, as the nation girded for war, they inverted the defense of “democracy” on campus and said that democratic governance meant

48

Coulton, 118–119; https://cdha.cuny.edu/items/show/3702. https://cdha.cuny.edu/items/show/3702. 50 See Winter Soldiers: A Story of a Conspiracy Against the Schools (1941), https://cdha.cuny.edu/ files/original/b83115ac490aed24db5732cf7d27bf95.pdf. 49

34

A. R. Nelson

the suppression of student protests. “American colleges, in these days of international and national crises, have a special obligation to vitalize the democratic spirit,” one said, “and to demonstrate its compatibility with current changes in industry and government.” Here was a distinctly conservative (and capitalist) defense of higher education for human-capital development, but then, suddenly, things changed.51

World War II and the Strayer Committee: Institutional Expansion and Stratification The collapse of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in June 1941 turned many CCNY students and professors into supporters of the war. On December 10, 1941, three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they declared: “We must do our part in the war against totalitarianism. We must be prepared, if necessary, to offer our lives in the cause of liberty, of democracy, of decency.”52 As students went to war, enrollment dropped, but not by much at the still-new Brooklyn College; for instance, “enrollment in the day session in the fall semester 1940 was 6,753; in the fall semester 1943, its lowest point, it was 5,227.” During the war, the faculty added courses in chemical warfare, elementary cryptography, and “Political Issues of the War and International Organization.” With the help of federal war grants, CCNY’s School of Technology became the nation’s fourth largest (of 192 programs, its enrollments ranked first in civil, second in electrical, fourth in mechanical, and sixth in chemical engineering). A number of students entered the School of Technology from CCNY’s evening courses, now transformed during the war into a new School of General Studies.53 As early as 1941, the overall enrollment of full- and part-time students on CCNY’s various campuses surpassed 47,000, which made it “the largest institution of free municipal higher education in the world.” But that was only a start. As the federal government began in 1943 to plan a “G.I. Bill” to use colleges to buffer the effects of postwar demobilization, New York did the same. One impetus for this move was a desire to prevent mass unemployment for veterans after he war; another was a desire to address civil unrest in New York City itself. A race riot had erupted in Harlem in 1943 after police shot and wounded a black soldier. Later that winter, mayor Fiorello LaGuardia convened a Commission on Unity to hear testimony on race relations in the city. Among other evidence, the commission uncovered widespread reports of discrimination in college admissions.54 In the wake of this commission, New York drafted a plan to accommodate 100,000 new students after the war—many of them African American and Latin American— in public colleges across the state, with help from expanded state financial aid. The 51

https://virtualny.ashp.cuny.edu/gutter/panels/panel18.html; Rudy, 454. See Schappes (1941). Rudy, 455. 53 Coulton, 153, 156; Wright (1953). 54 Rudy, 438–439; Fabricant and Brier (2016). See also Frydl (1990) and Wechsler (2010). 52

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

35

next year, a committee led by higher-education scholar George Strayer proposed 22 new junior colleges in underserved areas of the state. The so-called Strayer Committee in 1944 specifically cited the need for two-year junior-college programs in mechanical and commercial fields, as well as mid-level service fields. Juniorcollege graduates, it commented, “would, in the future, do much of the technical and professional work of New York, and from their number would be recruited many of its political and social leaders.” CCNY was in a good position to meet these needs.55 Keen to foster higher education for human-capital development, the Strayer Committee observed that New York ranked 47th out of 48 states in aid to higher education by per capita income. The state, in response, put forward a bill to pay New York City up to $1.2 million a year—or 40% of the amount it paid to 11 state teachers colleges—to expand access to CCNY’s four senior colleges. The city needed this money. Over time, a lack of resources at CCNY had restricted enrollment and had made admission highly selective, which, in turn, had contributed to poor relations between CCNY and the city’s most disadvantaged residents. One professor recalled, “When I started teaching in 1928, the entrance requirement was still a 60 percent high-school average,” but it rose “year by year from 60 to 65, 68, 70, 72, 75, 78, 80, 82, 85, and 88 by the time I left the college in 1941.” Many new arrivals in the city, including many black students, were excluded by this situation.56 He continued: “The reason for this escalation had absolutely nothing to do with academic standards but everything to do with economics: the college had [only] so many seats that could be filled by entering freshmen. Those for whom there was no room had to be excluded.” In short, he noted, selectivity was “an economically based exclusionary technique designed to cope with the surge of students.” By 1944, CCNY had become a tuition-free destination only for the city’s most academically talented youth. More than 90% had graduated from New York’s public schools, most were the first in their families to attend college, and many came from immigrant backgrounds. Though not as poor as their predecessors in 1880, 1900, or 1920, students in the 1940s still came mostly from the lower middle classes, but the city’s poorest students were left out.57

From CUNY to SUNY: State-Funded Elitism and Structural Racism Even as CCNY served populations otherwise not accommodated by New York colleges, no one could deny that it had become a more elite and, indeed, more exclusive institution. Most obviously, it did not serve those with lower high-school averages, who often came from the lowest-income families. And in New York in the 1940s, those families were increasingly non-white. 55

Rudy, 396. Gorelick, 195. 57 Gorelick, 195; Rudy, 397. 56

36

A. R. Nelson

This demographic reality shaped CCNY’s response to higher education and human-capital development in the postwar era—an era of unprecedented growth in U.S. colleges and universities. As historians Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier note, “Half a million New York state veterans were demobilized in the first six months of 1946, with a hundred thousand seeking college enrollment in the state that year alone.” The next six months saw even larger numbers. By November 1946, the state’s colleges and universities enrolled 270,000 full-time students, “almost three times the anticipated demand,” and “nearly half were veterans.” New York, like other states, “could not find sufficient space to accommodate this welter of new students,” many of whom benefited from the federal G.I. Bill, which covered all tuition, fees, and living costs for veteran students.58 And yet, Fabricant and Brier note, these enrollments were racially lopsided. “Jews were limited to 10 to 15 percent of admissions at the major private universities such as Columbia and Cornell (and fewer than 5 percent at smaller private colleges such as Colgate),” and the situation was even worse for black students. In 1946, only 0.5% of New York’s college-student population was African American. In the postwar years, when New York’s black population numbered 500,000 and its Jewish population at least 2,000,000, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to campaign against both religious and racial discrimination in college admissions. The goal was to increase the number of socially disadvantaged students in colleges and universities, not only for the sake of short-term social stability after the war but also for the sake of the nation’s long-term human-capital development and demonstrated commitment to the ideal of equal opportunity in a democracy.59 The same year, president Harry Truman commissioned a famous Presidential Panel on Higher Education, chaired by George Zook, former president of the University of Akron in Ohio and a prominent spokesman for municipal colleges. In 1947 and 1948, Zook’s panel issued six influential reports on the needs of “Higher Education for American Democracy.” Among the panel’s suggestions was a rapid expansion of junior colleges (or community colleges) in every state. New York, together with California, was among the first to act on this advice. In the spring of 1948, New York governor Thomas Dewey (who had run against Truman for president two years earlier) signed a bill to expand the State University of New York (SUNY), with far more students. The new system had a single board of trustees and central administration to oversee all public colleges in the state.60 At the same time, the legislature passed a Fair Education Practices Act, which, as Fabricant and Brier note, “banned racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination in college admissions, a significant victory for the state’s progressive forces.” The Fair Educational Practices Act created a State Commission Against Discrimination with authority to revoke tax-exempt status from any nonsectarian private school

58

Fabricant and Brier, 52. See also Abbott (1958). Fabricant and Brier, 53. 60 Zook et al. (1947). See Carmichael (1955). 59

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

37

that used racial or religious quotas for student admission—a statement that modern human-capital development could not tolerate cultural prejudice in college access.61 This commission investigated discriminatory practices at Columbia and NYU, as well as Cornell, Hamilton, Colgate, Union, and other private colleges. Its efforts were supported by the American Jewish Congress as well as American Youth for Democracy, the college wing of the Communist Party of the U.S.A., both of which compared higher-education admissions quotas to Nazi racism. CCNY students applauded these investigations, but in the early years of the cold war, they were divided on the role of Communist organizations, and even whether Communist organizations should be tolerated on public university campuses. Conservatives sometimes associated efforts to root out racial discrimination in admissions with political “agitation,” or misguided attempts to admit students “by race, color, and creed rather than ability.” It was clear that, within a context of widespread racial discrimination, the idea of higher education for human-capital development would continue to be hotly contested.62

Anti-discrimination in Admissions: A Debate Over “Mass” Higher Education, c. 1950 CCNY administrators debated the best way for admissions to reflect students’ ability but also the city’s racial and religious diversity. It was a difficult question, made even more difficult by the fact that CCNY’s head of Army Hall (a dormitory for veterans) segregated black students in the worst rooms—a practice that soon led to a new round of student protests on campus.63 In 1949, a group of Jewish students joined a group of black students to call for equal treatment as well as equal admissions. They cited war-time ideals of antidiscrimination to say they would be “just as vocal in our denunciation of Jim Crow [racial segregation] as we are when anti-Semitism is involved.” If higher education was to serve the aims of human-capital development, then it had to be open to all on an equal basis. Ultimately, almost 90% of CCNY’s students joined this protest. It failed, however, when conservatives at the college associated the protesters with leftist radicals who sought to divorce admissions from academic standards. The conservatives inverted the students’ human-capital arguments to say that CCNY’s purpose should be to direct education toward postwar economic development, not to support an agenda of social-justice redistribution.64 Later that year, the conservative reaction continued when New York’s legislature passed the so-called Feinberg Law to bar Communists and “subversives” from state employment. The law also prohibited Communists’ use of any public facilities—a policy that included CCNY’s campus. (Surprisingly, this law was later upheld by the 61

Fabricant and Brier, 54; Goldberg (2014). Goldberg, 585, 598–599. 63 Goldberg, 584. 64 Goldberg, 594. 62

38

A. R. Nelson

state’s supreme court.) It was in this fraught context that S. Willis Rudy published The College of the City of New York: A History, 1847–1947 (1949) to celebrate the institution’s centennial. Rudy’s widely cited work (originally his Columbia dissertation) emphasized CCNY’s place in U.S. higher education and, specifically, its contribution to human-capital development in the New York bay area.65 Rudy adopted the Zook Commission’s rhetoric. “The most important civilizations of history have been the best educated civilizations,” he wrote. “All scientific and technological advance in history, which has so remarkably increased human wealth, health, and power, is based fundamentally on knowledge, and this, in turn, depends upon the effectiveness of the system for its transmission.” CCNY was, according to Rudy, the best example of a system of free higher education devoted to humancapital development for diverse—often disadvantaged—students in a democratic society. “The history of CCNY,” he asserted, “might well be taken into consideration in a world torn by conflicting ideologies, national rivalries, and racial antagonisms. Its history furnishes a strong argument for the proposition that free higher education can indeed be the hope of the world.”66 Rudy described New York as the future mega-city, the “urban nerve center of the modern world,” and CCNY as its best hope for an educated workforce and socially enlightened citizenry. He called New York the “financial, maritime, and commercial heart” of the United States and, “in truth, its most amazing and characteristic product.” It was also a source of problems “more intense than any which had ever presented themselves to urban communities before.” Of these problems, the greatest was how to use higher education to manage human capital. “Here was the greatest variety of peoples, classes, religions, languages, and races to be found anywhere,” Rudy noted. “How were these people to be organized, elevated, unified, guided, and assimilated to the democratic spirit of America? This, in essence, was the problem,” and “mass” higher education was the solution.67 More specifically, CCNY was the solution. It was the institution that could equalize opportunity for all. “Only in this way could [the city] be brought to a unity of conception, to a single understanding and a common purpose in building a great super-community which could become the intellectual capital and the principal economic center of the western world. In this important undertaking, the College of the City of New York occupied a strategic place.” CCNY blazed a trail. “What had been considered by many as a luxury in 1847 came to be recognized a century later as a necessity,” Rudy commented. In a modern—and massive—bay area economy (and democracy), “the city had come to believe that it was absolutely urgent for its continued economic growth, scientific and intellectual progress, and survival as a political democracy that free higher education be supported by the common treasury.”68

65

Coulton, 131, 141. Rudy, 463–464. 67 Rudy, 460–461. 68 Rudy, 461. 66

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

39

It had not been cheap. CCNY had involved major investments. Over the past century, Rudy calculated, New York City had “spent approximately $100,000,000 for the support of the college and the expansion of its physical plant, and, if the money expended on Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Queens College be taken into account, it is clear that the city appropriated no less than $200,000,000.” But, surely, the results had been worth the effort. “[CCNY] was the first tax-supported, public, municipal institution of higher education offering a free four-year baccalaureate course to be established in the history of the world,” Rudy concluded. “It remains, a century later, the largest such institution. This is surely a remarkable record, and equalled by no other urban community in world history.”69

“Urban Renewal”: Community Services and Continued Stratification By the early 1950s, CCNY had indeed achieved extraordinary distinction. Its curriculum was very much like Harvard’s and, in fact, after Harvard released its famous report on General Education in a Free Society (1945), CCNY updated its own course of study to move away from “practical” or “technical” courses toward a more traditional liberal-arts core and left vocational education to branch campuses.70 CCNY’s faculty in history, literature, and philosophy was among the best in the United States, and some even said CCNY had done more than Harvard to address the question that James Conant had posed in General Education in a Free Society, namely, whether a liberal-arts education could be extended not only to elites but also to “the multitude.” It was an important question. Did CCNY now serve the elite or the multitude? The answer was both, for the elite were served on one campus (CCNY in Manhattan) and the multitude were serve on others (the branch campuses in the other boroughs). Moreover, even as CCNY’s students became more “elite,” it launched new programs to promote the “urban renewal” of its economically depressed Harlem community. During the early 1950s, for example, it offered adult courses on childcare and family health, while Brooklyn College launched a speech pathology clinic, a student testing center, and a local symphony and chorus.71 In the meantime, CCNY opened three new community colleges (to replace the evening programs): on Staten Island in 1955, in the Bronx in 1957, and in Queens in 1958. With a total enrollment of 3,000 students, these schools were still relatively small, and their increasingly non-white students—like their predecessors in CCNY’s evening schools—paid tuition. Some asked whether these institutions were built to segregate their students. Officials responded that efficient human-capital management required different colleges for different kinds of students in different locations. They said that students with inferior academic records should enroll in preparatory 69

Rudy, 462–463. Harvard University Committee on the Objectives of a General Education a Free Society (1945). 71 Coulton, x–xi; Wright, 65. 70

40

A. R. Nelson

two-year junior colleges while those with superior records (mostly white) should enroll in four-year senior colleges (which, in fact, were subsidized by junior-college tuition revenues).72 Not surprisingly, this response was unsatisfactory to many students who asked how to use higher education to promote a more equitable project of human-capital development. In 1958, for example, urban planner Paul Ylvisaker of the Ford Foundation proposed a major reconsideration of U.S. higher-education policy at the annual meeting of the Association of Urban Universities. Ylvisaker suggested that states’ land-grant universities should do more to serve disadvantaged students and, indeed, should do more research on urban problems. He recognized that urban universities neglected their neediest local residents and therefore recommended a major boost in federal aid “to support a multitude of urban extension services—in land use, housing, vocational guidance, nutrition, family budgets—to be backed up by university-level continuous research on a scale equal to the old agricultural experiment stations.”73 This idea took hold. A year later, in 1959, New York’s governor Nelson Rockefeller established a Committee to Review Higher Education Needs and Facilities, chaired by the Ford Foundation’s president Henry Heald (the former president of NYU), which recommended the expansion of the State University of New York (SUNY) system into “one of the major systems of higher education in the country.” He also suggested the expansion of CCNY. When the Heald Committee released its report in November 1960—just after the release of the famous California Master Plan— it called on New York state to double college attendance from 400,000 in 1959 to 800,000 by 1970, with some of this growth absorbed by private colleges but most of it managed by public institutions affiliated with SUNY and CCNY. Here was higher education for human-capital development on a truly grand scale.74 To pay for this growth, the Heald Committee proposed an end to SUNY’s policy of free tuition, even as it recommended public subsidies to private colleges that were expected to accept large numbers of additional students. As historians Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier note, the Committee suggested a state allocation of “$18.2 million, in the form of grants of $100 per semester to help pay students’ private college tuition charges.” Why this proposal of public aid to private colleges (including religious colleges)? Because the governor hoped to win the political support of the private colleges in the short term for the expansion of the public system over the long term. “To blunt the opposition of the private colleges,” Fabricant and Brier comment, the governor promised “to use public funds to help pay for private college tuition.” It worked.75

72

Fabricant and Brier, 54–55. See also Gordon (1975); and New York Board of Higher Education (1953). Gordon (1975, 81). 73 Marshak, 27. 74 Fabricant and Brier, 56. 75 Fabricant and Brier, 56. See also Connery and Benjamin (1979).

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

41

CUNY’s New Master Plan: New York’s Response to California, c. 1960 Here was a new political contract to use public funds to higher education to promote human-capital development far beyond the New York bay area. In 1962, as a first step toward this goal, New York created a State University Construction Fund, a quasi-independent public-benefit corporation that “ultimately carried out more than $700 million in SUNY capital projects,” with new facilities across the state.76 In this way, New York—like California—spent millions in the early 1960s on a massive system of public colleges and universities. The system was deliberately stratified. The majority of students were to be educated in two-year junior colleges while an elite few were to be admitted each year to four-year senior colleges. CCNY participated in this growth, as well as it concomitant stratification. For example, CCNY opened a Graduate Center for advanced studies, which received large federal contracts for research and, consequently, had more funds—and more faculty—than senior or junior colleges. But while the Graduate Center and the senior colleges enrolled increasingly middle-class white students, working-class black students and new immigrants now attended the city’s junior colleges (which continued to charge tuition). In this way, access to New York’s system varied widely by race. Of course, the rapid growth of New York’s higher-education system was expensive, and many asked whether the imposition of tuition fees at the SUNY campuses should be extended to both junior and senior colleges in New York City, which, in 1962, were brought under the supervision of a single administrative entity called the City University of New York (CUNY). CUNY strongly resisted tuition charges at four-year senior colleges and, in 1962, put forward its own master plan, “A LongRange Plan for the City University of New York,” which projected enrollment growth from 99,825 to 160,000 by 1975 and sought $400 million in capital improvements to support a city-wide expansion of both junior and senior colleges as well as graduate and professional schools—both necessary, it argued, in order to grow enrollment and expand higher education for human-capital development.77 As historians Fabricant and Brier note, CUNY’s long-term request for massive public aid sought “first, to expand enrollment by creating a more flexible admissions policy, targeting as many as half of all public and private high school graduates in the city for recruitment to CUNY; second, based on the California model, to build or acquire more community colleges; and third, to maintain free tuition.” It urged CUNY to add more space for students and lower its senior-college admission threshold from a high-school average of 88% to 82% in order to accommodate 30% of all high-school graduates (up from 20%), with another 30% to be accommodated by two-year junior colleges (on grounds that “new immigrant populations are not able to compete for admission to the four-year colleges”).78 76

Fabricant and Brier, 66–67. Marshak, 5, 6. 78 Fabricant and Brier, 68; Marshak, 5, 6. 77

42

A. R. Nelson

These enrollment strategies were motivated in part by the baby boom. In 1963, New York City’s public schools anticipated 10,000 additional graduates, followed by 10,000 more in 1964, a jump that could push CUNY’s admissions threshold up to a 90% high-school average unless new colleges were added to create more space to accommodate more students. A revised master plan in 1964 called for a four-fold increase in junior-college spaces—from 2,800 to 10,500—over two years. To house these students, CUNY opened the new Borough of Manhattan Community College and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn and reopened the New York State Institute of Arts and Sciences as New York City Community College. To serve the broader New York bay area, the system had to expand quickly.79 This expansion was overseen by CUNY chancellor Albert Bowker, a mathematician and former dean at Stanford who foresaw that New York’s student population would “grow rapidly in a short period of time and look very different, demographically and culturally, from previous municipal-college cohorts.” In particular, it would include larger numbers of non-white students. Bowker understood the link between higher education and human-capital management in the city. He also understood that CCNY had become increasingly exclusive and had not been open to students from the city’s most disadvantaged groups. These students needed to be prepared for a new and modern workforce. As Fabricant and Brier observe, Bowker knew that, as old industrial jobs were lost, “an expanding number of students of color would need to be educated in CUNY’s community colleges in order to fill a growing number of semi-professional administrative and service jobs across the city.”80

Higher Education and Human Capital: Clark Kerr and “The Urban-Grant University” The late 1960s brought huge changes to CUNY and its approach to higher education and human-capital management—changes driven by the demographic evolution of New York City and by new conceptions of the role of municipal universities in modern super-cities. Alongside the rise of the San Francisco bay area into a regional “knowledge hub” came the rise of the New York bay area. In anticipation of these changes, the U.S. Congress in 1965 passed the Higher Education Act, which promised to increase federal aid to low-income students through subsidized loans and grants. A year later, in 1966, the Ford Foundation gave Columbia a large award, with $10 million earmarked “for the support of new efforts in the field of urban and minority affairs.” Ford Foundation president McGeorge Bundy (who replaced Henry Heald that year) called on Columbia to partner with its Harlem neighbors to study the link between higher education and human capital. Harlem, a center for black residents in the city, sat next to Morningside Heights, the site of Columbia itself. “The great university on Morningside Heights is a neighbor 79 80

Marshak, 10, 11; Fabricant and Brier, 68. Fabricant and Brier, 69.

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

43

to one of the greatest problems and opportunities of American life,” he remarked: “the problems and opportunities of Harlem.”81 But what about CCNY, located practically next door to Columbia, as well as Harlem? An institutional evaluation in 1966 asked what CCNY might do for its neighborhood. “Is City College making its thrust into the future as it might?” the report inquired. “Might not City College be considering a School of Urban Studies? A School of International Studies? A School of Law? A School for the Health-Related Professions?” To some, it seemed the “elite” CCNY had failed to innovate and had failed to serve the black students—and the black city residents—who lived close by. A year after this evaluation, the city’s Board of Higher Education completely passed over CCNY near Harlem and instead gave CUNY chancellor Bowker permission to create three new junior colleges in different parts of the city: Medgar Evers Community College in Brooklyn, La Guardia Community College in Queens, and Hostos Community College in the Bronx.82 CCNY continued to distance itself from the urban (and racial) challenges that sat right next door. It became increasingly detached from the ideal of higher education for human-capital development among the city’s most disadvantaged communities. It became increasingly elite (and elitist). Therefore, in the coming years, Bowker made plans for three more senior colleges in other parts of the city: John Jay College in Manhattan, York College in Brooklyn, and Richmond College in Staten Island, plus a reorganization of the Hunter College campus in the Bronx (which became Lehman College) and CCNY’s downtown Business School campus (which, in 1968, became the separate Baruch College). But what about CCNY? In 1968, Clark Kerr, the past chancellor of the University of California System who had since become chairman of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, visited City College to deliver a speech on “The Urban-Grant University: A Model for the Future” in which he asked what role CCNY might play in the city and, more broadly, in the future of U.S. higher education.83 Kerr noted that City College in 1968 had become a prestigious institution that stood alongside the University of California-Berkeley and the University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign as the institutions with the most graduates who later earned PhDs—so many that, of every twenty-five PhDs in the United States, at least one went to a City College alumnus (a remarkable achievement). Kerr attributed this success not only to CCNY’s high-status faculty but also to its ability to make free higher education available to students from a wide variety of backgrounds. As he looked back on America’s land-grant universities and their service to poor students, he echoed Paul Yvilsaker’s call for elite institutions like CCNY to address the problems of large cities, notably poverty and racism.84 Kerr saw CUNY’s role in urban economic development as one that extended far beyond advanced research in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to include 81

Quoted in Marshak, 157. Marshak, 26; Fabricant and Brier, 71. 83 Fabricant and Brier, 71; Kerr (1968). 84 Kerr, 3. 82

44

A. R. Nelson

more public outreach, more community education, and more local employment— all designed to connect higher education to human-capital development. He placed CUNY at the heart of a multifaceted liberal democratic policy agenda which president Lyndon Johnson called the “Great Society.” Aware of similar efforts around the world, Kerr encouraged the federal government to support this work. “Today, great national problems have to do with the cities, with equality of opportunity, with ending poverty, with the quality of life,” he declared. “I think the federal government might logically respond to these problems by again supporting the proper activities of higher education.”85 In his vision of higher education for human-capital development, Kerr cast urbangrant universities as full-service social-welfare organizations, embedded in their city ecosystems. As he put it, “The urban-grant university might parallel the landgrant institution not only via city-oriented curricula and on-campus research studies but also by setting up intensified city extension services, [much] like [land-grant universities’] agricultural extension [services].” Of course, not everyone supported Kerr’s liberal vision—or his record of higher-education leadership. For example, California’s arch-conservative governor Ronald Reagan had just fired Kerr from his post at the University of California for his alleged “failure” to control leftist student protesters during the Free Speech Movement on the UC-Berkeley campus. (Reagan said that Kerr was too lenient with “radicals,” even as many students thought he was too harsh.) It seemed clear that any implementation of Kerr’s liberal “urbangrant university” concept would bring criticism from conservatives who said that higher education for human-capital development should not necessarily prioritize disadvantaged students.86

Student Unrest and the Urban Crisis: Black Student Anger and Activism The infamous student unrest of the 1960s set the stage for a new era in CUNY’s history, an era when new groups of students demanded new kinds of supports from New York’s public institutions of higher education. In a sense, the activism of these years exposed the long-term failures of social planners and policy “modernizers” to channel student demands in directions that served their own (conservative) vision of higher education for human-capital development. City College felt the force of these demands in 1969, when more than 200 members of the “Black and Puerto Rican Student Community” occupied its administration building and called for the resignation of CCNY’s president on grounds that he stifled free speech as well as student participation in college governance. The students also called for an “open-admissions” plan that would guarantee a seat in a CUNY junior or senior college to every high-school graduate in the city. This demand sought 85 86

Kerr, 7. Kerr, 7.

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

45

to redress decades of racial inequity in CCNY admissions. Over time, CCNY had graduated very few black students; in fact, it had only 41 black graduates during the 1930s, 113 during the 1940s, and 165 during the first half of the 1950s—even as black residents by the mid-1960s comprised 17.3% of the city’s population. If higher education was to serve the needs of human-capital development, then it had to give all students an equal opportunity.87 As early as 1965, CCNY had offered black and Puerto Rican students (who comprised a further 11.2% of the population) stipends to participate in a “PreBaccalaureate Program” of remedial courses, and in 1968 a statewide (and statemandated) Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) Program enrolled 3,000 low-income non-white youth (with 700 at CCNY). And yet, as Fabricant and Brier note, “SEEK managed to admit only 1,100 students of color to City College, Brooklyn College, Queens College, and the other CUNY senior colleges. Brooklyn College was 96 percent white in 1968, while City College, a bit more integrated, had a student body that was 91 percent white.” By 1969, this situation—where students in New York’s tuition-free elite senior colleges were almost exclusively white—had become politically untenable.88 In the protests of 1969, student activists made five “non-negotiable” demands: (1) to expand the SEEK program; (2) to admit freshman classes that reflected the racial composition of the city; (3) to establish special orientation program for Black and Puerto Rican freshmen; (4) to create Black Studies and Puerto Rican Studies programs; and (5) to require Spanish-language courses for all teacher-education majors. The broader historical context behind these demands was crucial. In recent years, a series of race riots had erupted across the nation: in Harlem in 1964, in the predominantly black Watts section of Los Angeles in 1965, in Chicago in 1966, in Newark in 1967. These events had coincided with student protests against the Vietnam War in several universities, notably Columbia in 1968 and Harvard in 1969. Students in New York demanded more attention to civil rights and social justice, aims they saw increasingly in global anti-imperialist terms.89 In the end, CUNY leaders agreed to adjust the university’s admissions policies so that any students with an 80% average (down from 88%) or a class rank in the top half of their high-school cohort would be given a place in a CUNY senior college, while all others would be given a place in a CUNY junior college. Thus began an experiment with “open admissions.” Within a year, freshman enrollment jumped 100%, from 17,000 in 1969 to 34,000 in 1970. The number of black freshmen skyrocketed from 1,600 to 8,300, that is, from 9 to 24% of the overall student body, while the number of Puerto Rican freshmen jumped from 4.9 to 9.9% and Asian-American freshmen rose from 5 to 6%. Clearly, the university had become more open and far more racially diverse.90

87

Fabricant and Brier, 81; Marshak (1973). See also Dyer (1990). Marshak, 47; Fabricant and Brier, 81. 89 Fabricant and Brier, 81. See also Wechsler (1977). 90 Fabricant and Brier, 80; Marshak, 49. See also Lavin et al. (1981). 88

46

A. R. Nelson

Moreover, as CCNY’s freshman class shifted to a non-white majority, the religious composition of the class also shifted. Catholic students (many of them Puerto Rican) increased from 28 to 43%, and Protestants (many of them black) increased from 22 to 31%, while the proportion of Jewish students dropped from 50 to 26%. (Some now complained that CCNY was biased against Jews.) In some ways, CUNY’S experiment with open admissions was unprecedented, but others said it was simply a return to the institution’s roots. One working-class Jewish alum from the class of 1928 noted: “open admissions in 1970 was a reversion to the tradition of open admissions for high-school graduates that had obtained from 1847 to 1930.” The institution had revived the idea of higher education for human-capital development for all.91

Open Admissions: A Controversial Experiment, c. 1970 A new CCNY president, Robert Marshak, arrived in 1970 to oversee the implementation of the new open-admissions plan. A graduate of CCNY, he saw a need for the institution to do more to serve the non-white students who comprised a majority of New York residents. He also saw the link between higher education and human-capital development in a new light. Unfortunately, many of the students who entered CCNY in 1970 were not prepared for college. While they attended free-of-charge, few actually completed their studies. The same was true of students who entered the city’s junior colleges. One scholar found that only 2% of junior-college students graduated after two years, and only 19% graduated after four years. Many were shocked by these results. Even after CUNY added remedial courses, many students continued to fail—especially in their regular college-level courses. According to one report, “CUNY administrators stress that unqualified freshmen are given remedial courses in reading and arithmetic. The flaw in the program is that the student receiving remedial reading can also take regular courses in history, science, or economics, drastically impairing the level of instruction [in those courses].”92 These students had not received adequate preparation in high school. At least 70% of New York City’s public high school graduates who attended college in the 1970s enrolled at CUNY’s senior or junior colleges, but eight of ten public high school graduates who entered CUNY required significant remediation in English, mathematics, or both—and the costs of remediation were high. CUNY’s experiment with open admissions increased the annual budget from $20 million to $320 million over a decade, but many felt that CUNY’S campuses, even with added remedial courses, did not serve their students well. Many dropped out and entered the labor market without the skills necessary for high-wage employment. It seemed to many

91 92

Marshak, 50; Gorelick, 195. Philadelphia Inquirer, December 25, 1970, p. 59.

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

47

that “open admission” was not the way to advance the aim of higher education for human-capital development.93 To many, the experiment with “open admissions” offered a useful reminder that higher-education systems depend on strong primary and secondary education systems, which New York did not have in the 1970s. (A racially divisive teachersunion strike in 1968 had left the city’s public schools in administrative shambles.) At the same time, other colleges felt the effects of CUNY’s open-admissions policy when they lost students to CUNY’S new campuses. NYU, for example, closed its campus in the Bronx “presumably because of a (predictable) shifting of some students away from that private institution to the free CUNY.” At the same time, Pace University, St. John’s University, Long Island University, the Pratt Institute, and the Parsons School of Design all lost students. By the mid-1970s, several New York universities that lost students were “teetering on or near the brink of fiscal disaster.” Some asked whether, from a broader systems perspective, these effects really advanced the aims of higher education for human-capital development across the New York bay area.94 Yet, amid these crises, CCNY redoubled its efforts to serve its local community. Its range of services in Harlem was remarkable: new practicum courses in urban studies, outreach programs related to drug use and juvenile delinquency, community psychology clinics, adult-education courses, and summer programs for neighborhood youth. The college also served the city administration. As president Marshak observed: “By participating in the solution of pressing urban problems, by lending assistance to particular agencies of municipal government, and by serving as a resource for all citizen groups, the college can truly serve the city, thus returning many times over municipal investment in the institution.” CCNY even offered workshops for local trades groups on how to win university business contracts; for city planners on how to develop parks and recreational facilities; for school-based para-professionals on day-care, after-school, and special-education services; and for Chinatown residents on English language acquisition.95

Ethnic Studies: The Examples of Asian Studies and Black Studies Aside from these programs, CCNY also launched new academic initiatives: a Center for the Performing Arts, an Institute for Social History, a successful Center on Women’s Studies, an Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and others. The most widely debated innovation, however, was the creation of four new Ethnic Studies departments to meet the demands of racial minority (now majority) students.96 93

Abricant and Brier, 107. Heller (1973); Marshak, Problems and Prospects, 16. See also Hester (1971) and See Podair (2008). 95 Marshak, Problems and Prospects, 157–158, 245. 96 See Marshak, Problems and Prospects, 40–55. 94

48

A. R. Nelson

While much of the discussion of Ethnic Studies departments focuses on the development of Black Studies (which encompassed African American, Caribbean, and African Studies), the Asian Studies program at CCNY gained special notoriety in 1972 when a group of “Concerned Asian Students” physically occupied the Ethnic Studies offices to demand their own academic department. President Marshak recalled this event. “I remember that day vividly, because that evening I was the honored speaker at a banquet of the Newcomen Society, a black-tie affair attended by several hundred business leaders with British connections. I was trying to engage the interest of this audience in the concept of a multi-ethnic university of the highest quality.” But the student protest forced him to leave the Newcomen Society dinner early and return to campus to address the protesters.97 Marshak resolved the Asian students’ protest in part with new efforts to secure private foundation grants for additional programs in Chinatown: an Asian-American Resource Center, an oral history project with elderly Chinese immigrants, a day care service, and several audio-visual projects for local schools. The student activists welcomed these initiatives, but they wanted more. Like their immigrant-student counterparts a century earlier, they saw themselves as both students and workers and, when they considered higher education for human-capital development, they wanted the university to provide higher wages and better working conditions in both on-campus and off-campus jobs. Marshak, however, was unable to meet these demands. For example, when student-workers at the new Chinatown day care shouted expletives in Marshak’s face to demand wages equivalent to full-time licensed childcare providers, he suffered a stroke and required two months of medical recuperation. (“Such were the personal risks to which college presidents were subjected during the decade of the 1970s!” he recalled.)98 Students often had their own ideas about how best to put higher education in service to human-capital development, and they engaged in frequent debates about the relative merits of gradual reformism and more aggressive radicalism. As in earlier periods, debates over policy (and specifically over the relation between higher education and human-capital development) often devolved into debates over free speech as campus moderates and militants battled to be heard. Take, for example, the political divisions among the Asian Studies faculty. In 1973, at the height of the Cultural Revolution in China, the chair of the Asian Studies department was unsure how to handle professors who evaluated their colleagues’ work (i.e., their scholarship) not on the basis of its academic contribution or credibility but “primarily on the basis of their acceptance of Mao[ist] thought.”99 The chair noted how national and international politics increasingly overlapped in his department. When it came to higher education for human-capital development, opposing camps fought to control the discussions. “It was as if the Chinese war of national liberation was being refought by surrogates of the Kuomintang and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.” He called it a “disruptive ‘mini-protracted 97

Marshak, 132, 135. Marshak, 134–135. 99 Marshak, 135. 98

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

49

people’s war’ to ensure the hiring of Maoist faculty and staff in the Asian Studies department.” Fortunately, these ideological conflicts did not last. When these debates gradually subsided after 1976, the Asian Studies department created the AsianAmerican Assembly for Policy Research to facilitate better discussions on “AsianAmerican concerns as well as U.S.-Asian relations.” (Media mogul Henry Luce, who had spent his childhood in China and later became a fervent supporter of Taiwan, served as the assembly’s honorary chair.)100 In some ways, this era’s conflicts grew from divergent perspectives on the relationship between higher education and human-capital development as CUNY looked for ways to meet the demands of its students and, simultaneously, meet the demands of a rapidly changing national and international economy. For example, the Black Studies department in this period hosted an influential “Nigerian-U.S. Workshop” to discuss new educational and economic partnerships. In 1972, when UNESCO in Paris created the U.N. Development Program, its head of Technological Education and Research was CCNY physics professor Harry Lustig, who looked for new ways to encourage academic exchanges that involved both scientists and humanists. The result was a discussion between CCNY and the University of Ife in Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University) about possible collaborations in Black Studies and science. (Ife later chose to partner with universities in Britain, however, so CCNY shifted its collaborations to Africa House, established in the 1940s by then-Columbia students Kwame Nkrumah [later president of Ghana] and K.O. Mbadiwe [later a cabinet minister in Nigeria].)101 Mbadiwe welcomed president Marshak to Lagos to discuss higher education— especially technological education—and human-capital development in bay-area mega-cities, and CCNY later hosted a week-long symposium on “Technological Development in Nigeria,” with delegates from 13 universities as well as Nigeria’s commissioner of education. After the conference, president Marshak remarked on “the linkage between ethnic studies and the study of socioeconomic, political, and technological problems of developing nations” and “the great value of introducing an international component into the college’s ethnic studies programs.” In sum, he said, “the Nigerian workshop was ‘community outreach’ on a global scale.” Here was a useful—global—way to think about CUNY’S role in higher education for humancapital development (not unlike CCNY’S early innovations regarding commercial ties with South America during the 1920s).102

100

Marshak, 135–137. Marshak, 142–145. 102 Marshak, 249. 101

50

A. R. Nelson

Higher Education for the Modern Mega-City: Global Connections and Local Programs CCNY’s president Marshak was deeply committed to “‘community outreach’ on a global scale.” Early on, he planned a National Center for Urban Problems to help not only New York but also “Tokyo, London, Paris, Moscow, and other cities.” According to Marshak, mega-cities (particularly those in globally connected bay areas) had at least as much in common with their international peers as with smaller cities in their own nations.103 By 1971, this idea had evolved into a Center for Urban and Environmental Problems, which complemented the Department of Urban Affairs at Hunter College and the Institute for Community Studies at Queens College. Four years later, in 1975, Marshak commented on this center’s work in an essay titled “Problems and Prospects of an Urban Public University,” not only in the United States but around the world. This article called on CCNY and its peers to reconsider the relation between higher education and human capital and “redefine traditional concepts of the ‘educable’ by reaching out to students of all ages, backgrounds, and degrees of preparation in the metropolitan area” in order to produce large numbers of “well-educated graduates who will serve the city with diligence and dedication.” These programs—designed to include the city’s most talented students even if they came from disadvantaged backgrounds—were designed to help their graduates think globally but act locally to solve urban problems.104 CCNY pursued this goal with two new interdisciplinary programs: a six-year B.A.-J.D. in Urban Legal Studies (for new attorneys focused on poverty law, tenant law, civil-rights law, and criminal justice) and a six-year B.S.-M.D. in Biomedical Education (for primary-care doctors). Both were operational by 1975 and targeted students from disadvantaged communities. The program in Biomedical Education had been aided by a Commonwealth Fund report on “Advising Minority Group Students Enrolled in Medical School,” and soon, nearly a dozen medical schools in greater New York agreed to accept CCNY students into third-year rotations with credit for two years of prior work (Columbia and Cornell declined to participate). The goal was to expand the reach of higher education for human-capital development while also meeting the needs of the city’s most disadvantaged students.105 Whether this program represented “‘community outreach’ on a global scale” was debatable, however, as its goal was to make local provisions to “meet the demand for medical training that sent thousands of young Americans each year to medical schools in Mexico or the Philippines or [other countries].” The goal, in short, was to keep medical students (i.e., human capital) at home. To create a pipeline of new students, CCNY launched several new programs in local high schools: a Bridge to Medicine Program, a Minority Institutions Science Improvement Program, a Select Program 103

Marshak, 30. Marshak, 31, 42; Marshak (1975). 105 Marshak, 213. 104

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

51

in Science and Engineering, a Mathematics Development Program for Secondary School Teachers, and Boys’ Harbor Projects (in biology and chemistry).106 Meanwhile, to address the need for remedial education, a new Center for Academic Skills was funded initially by the IBM Corporation, because public resources for these programs were not forthcoming. Indeed, by the mid-1970s, with the additional costs of open admissions (and the extra services this experiment required), the CUNY system overall was in a financial tailspin. Two-thirds of its teachers were part-time adjuncts, and two-thirds of its students left after four years with no degree. The financial crisis had stemmed from a steady drop in public aid relative to rising costs. As early as January 1972, president Marshak shared his “deep concern” about CUNY’s fiscal situation with the governor. “The ‘freeze budget’ you are advocating is nothing less than a deterioration budget,” he complained after the governor once again proposed tuition charges at CUNY’s senior colleges to fill budget gaps.107 The call for tuition was driven also by national changes in higher-education finance. Congress in 1972 had scheduled to reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which subsidized low-income students’ tuition with federally guaranteed loans. To share in those loans (and thus shift higher-education costs from the state to students and the federal government), the governor wanted CUNY to charge tuition (which the federal government would then reimburse). Marshak lamented this change. “Tragically,” he wrote in 1973, “the frugal city and state budget is no longer sufficient to meet the educational demands of students and of the city. Tax-levy funds are no longer sufficient to stimulate a continuous flow of exciting, intellectually respectable, socially useful, and creative educational ideas and programs.”108

CUNY and the Financial Crisis of the 1970s: From Public to Private Funding As public aid declined, Marshak looked for other funds. “In order to fulfill its mission, the college must move forward; it must meet the challenges of a changing urban environment aggressively and creatively,” he observed. “To do so it must rely upon such alternate sources of funding as the alumni, foundations, corporations, and the federal government”—that is, both private and public funds.109 Would the federal government take up the mantle of higher education for humancapital development? Some thought so. In 1972, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, under the leadership of Clark Kerr, promoted a “toned down” version of Kerr’s call for congressionally supported “urban-grant” universities in a report titled “The Campus and the City.” In the wake of this report, Marshak discussed its 106

Marshak, 70–71, 181. Marshak, 72, 266. See also Newt Davidson Collective (1974). 108 Marshak, Problems and Prospects, 163. 109 Marshak, Problems and Prospects, 163. 107

52

A. R. Nelson

recommendations with the “Urban Seven”: the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Missouri-Kansas City; University of Minnesota, University of Massachusetts, University of Cincinnati, and Wayne State University (in Detroit). They asked to fund urban higher education in the future as part of a broader push to connect higher education with human-capital development in large cities.110 The introduction of CUNY’s open-admission plan had inspired peer institutions across the country to follow its example, but these experiments also coincided with a global recession triggered by the OPEC energy crisis. This economic crisis hit colleges and universities hard. As gas prices quadrupled and the economy crumpled, millions of Americans lost their jobs. High unemployment in 1974 and 1975 led to more demand for higher education as well as other social services. Cities were hit especially hard by these demands, and CUNY did not escape unscathed. By 1975, the system enrolled 253,000 undergraduates (an increase of 55% since 1969), and the financial costs of its open-admissions experiment were overwhelming. “Soon, the annual cost of CUNY will be $1 billion,” observed one report, “to be borne by a society reaching the upper limits of its tax burdens.”111 In this context, CUNY’s increasing costs attracted criticism. In April 1975, the CBS television reporter Morley Safer of 60 Minutes ran a segment on the openadmission program at CUNY which called the effort both expensive and ineffective. Unflattering essays appeared in Science, Commentary, and the New York Post (which, a year earlier, had been sold to arch-conservative Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch). To address the financial crisis, including the crisis at CUNY, New York officials asked the federal government for help, but U.S. treasury secretary William Simon (a former bond trader at Salomon Brothers and friend of president Richard Nixon) rejected their requests and said the city and state needed to find ways to support themselves. (In fact, as Fabricant and Brier recount, “Simon’s economic rejection included a political attack on CUNY’s free-tuition policy.”)112 Even before this rejection, state legislators had placed New York City under the financial direction of an Emergency Financial Control Board (EFCB), which, in January 1975, required the city to cut its total public workforce by 15%—or 47,000 workers. This requirement included the instructional staff at CUNY, a cut that called into question the relationship between higher education and human-capital development. During the summer of 1975, the budget at CUNY was cut 17% over two years, and 4,500 employees lost their jobs. City College virtually wiped out its student counselors, security personnel, equipment budgets, and library funds, even as it chose to protect its “expensive yet valuable professional schools and science division.” To many, it seemed that CUNY prioritized its most elite programs and students over those who needed support the most.113

110

Marshak, 251–253. Fabricant and Brier, 84. 112 Marshak, 82; Fabricant and Brier, 87. 113 Fabricant and Brier, 82, 87; Marshak, 271. 111

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

53

In the end, the city’s Board of Higher Education was forced to accept tuition charges at CUNY in exchange for a full state takeover of senior-college finance (junior colleges would still be carried on New York City’s books). The deal said that CUNY would receive “state financial support comparable to that of SUNY and even the private colleges.” And yet, with CUNY tuition set at SUNY levels, workingclass students were priced out. The imposition of tuition drastically reduced CCNY’s enrollment (from 3,200 freshman in 1971 to 1,500 in 1977), even as it boosted the proportion of black and Puerto Rican students who remained in the CUNY system. (Higher-income white students increasingly fled the financially strapped CUNY campuses for better education in SUNY schools across the state.) In this context, CUNY once again had to rethink the relationship between higher education and human-capital development.114

Financing Mass Higher Education: A Return to Exclusivity and Elitism, c. 1990 Enrollment declines at CCNY were symptomatic of the CUNY system overall. Student departures led to lower tuition revenues, which in turn led to budget cuts, which in turn led to faculty layoffs, which prompted still more middle-class students to flee. “It is within this context,” Fabricant and Brier note, “that CUNY suffered a decline of 62,000 students in its total enrollment by the end of the 1970s.”115 Some “neoconservatives” actually celebrated this decline. They believed CUNY would become more selective, and greater selectivity would lead to higher academic standards, which in turn would contribute to human-capital development. They said it was better for New York City to focus scarce resources on the educational needs of its most talented students. As president Marshak wrote, “‘neoconservative’ faculty banded together under the leadership of Sidney Hook of New York University in a national watchdog group called ‘University Centers for Rational Alternatives.” (One member was CCNY dean Theodore Gross, who condemned his own institution’s open-admissions policy in an essay titled “How to Kill a College,” published the Saturday Review in 1978.)116 With the introduction of tuition, CUNY’s senior colleges entered a new era. To rebuild their enrollments, they shifted their focus back to middle-class students and, during the 1980s and 1990s, launched new “advanced” programs to attract the city’s most academically talented youth. They publicized tougher admissions requirements so that new students would arrive on campus better prepared. By the early 1990s, CCNY had returned to selectivity and elitism. While the system’s two-year junior colleges still accepted nearly everyone who applied, the four-year senior colleges accepted only top students who seemed likely to succeed. 114

Fabricant and Brier, 88; Marshak, 68. See also Glazer (1981). Fabricant and Brier, 88. 116 Marshak, 52–54. See also “How to Kill a College,” Saturday Review, February 4, 1978. 115

54

A. R. Nelson

Meanwhile, to build its research profile, CUNY began to focus on programs in the natural sciences—programs that would garner large research grants, private donations, and contributions from alumni who had found high-paying jobs in fields such as medicine and technology. Once again, CUNY’s approach to human-capital development was to direct students into highly skilled professions even if most of those students came from socially and economically advantaged backgrounds. These changes raised a number of questions from a human-capital perspective. As CUNY became more selective, did it meet the city’s overall educational needs? Which strategy managed human capital more effectively: broader access to higher education during the 1970s or narrower access for the best and brightest during the 1990s? Most human-capital experts maintain that cities benefit more when they educate the poor. Why? Because marginal returns on educational investments directed at the poor are often greater than returns on educational investments directed at the rich. Did it make sense to concentrate New York’s public resources on more talented (and more affluent) students? Discussions about higher education in “bay areas” often cast elite research universities as the backbone of regional knowledge economies. Some imply that global competition for “ideas” leads to a borderless race for talent in which the most highly valued—or at least the most highly publicized—forms of expertise command extraordinary wage premiums.117 The hope is that agglomerations of talent will allow urban centers like New York to attract “ideas” that lead to job creation, such that increased concentrations of knowledge workers have a “multiplier” effect in which knowledge fosters innovation, which, in turn, draws venture capital, which, in turn, creates startup industries, which create jobs, which leads to economic growth, etc. In recent years, this presumably “virtuous cycle” has led CUNY in some intriguing new directions with respect to human-capital development. Perhaps the most intriguing is the creation of a so-called Macaulay Honors College, launched in the fall of 2005. The students in Macaulay Honors College have impressive academic credentials and often choose CUNY over Ivy League schools. Each student in the Honors College gets a free laptop as well as free admission to New York’s cultural venues, plus $7,500 to use for research projects or study abroad. What is most notable, however, is that Honors College students pay no tuition. While others now pay roughly $5,000 a year, Honors College students (whose families are often quite wealthy) pay nothing. CUNY uses resources that could serve the poor to recruit wealthy students who, it hopes, will improve the university’s academic reputation (and its rankings). Of course, the policy departs sharply from CUNY’s early mission and raises enduring questions about the relation between higher education and human-capital development in the New York “bay area.”118

117 118

See Lavin and Hyllegard (1996). https://macaulay.cuny.edu/.

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

55

CUNY’s Future: Higher Education and Human-Capital Development Will CUNY repeat a cycle the institution experienced a half-century earlier—a cycle of increasing selectivity in service to wealthy students and neglect of those who are less affluent? Might the university once gain fail to meet demands for higher education among disadvantaged students? CUNY’s leaders are well aware of the protests that followed such questions in earlier decades. Just like their predecessors, CUNY officials have addressed potential concerns with new branch campuses in an increasingly diversified—and stratified—system of higher education: the same approach that eventually led to student protests in earlier decades. In 2012, for example, they launched Guttmann Community College, the system’s first new community college since the 1960s. The new campus offers twoyear degree programs in urban studies, human services, business administration, information technology, and liberal arts, but, also like its forbears, its enrollment is tiny—less than 1,000 students a year. In the meantime, CUNY has struggled to accommodate more and more students with less and less financial support from the city or state (despite the state’s promise to supply more aid in exchange for tuition fees). CUNY saw a 40% rise in enrollment between 1990 and 2013, but it saw a 40% drop in state funds per student between 1992 and 2012.119 Much of this drop occurred in the aftermath the financial crisis of 2008, which hit New York hard. One study found that state aid to SUNY and CUNY declined from $5.43 billion in 2007 to $4.72 billion in 2011—a 13% drop. Another study found that per-student state aid to CUNY fell 17% between 2008 and 2015—a decline that reflects a much broader decline in public aid to higher education across the country. To compensate for the state’s disinvestment, CUNY has increased tuition. As Fabricant and Brier note, approximately “60 percent of CUNY students’ annual family income is under $30,000, yet, between 2011 and 2016, those families were required to absorb tuition increases of 38 percent at four-year colleges and 45 percent at [two-year] colleges,” with little added financial aid.120 Still, the CUNY system continues to expand. According to its website, CUNY’s plan in 2018 to update its facilities across the city represented 20% of all New York construction projects that year, while “an infusion of nearly $10 billion in new facilities over the last fifteen years has produced 14,000 jobs in New York City.” CUNY’s rhetoric continues to note the link between higher education and human capital. “CUNY colleges account for more than a third of the business and finance degrees awarded by New York City institutions,” it boasts, plus “a third of the city’s public-school teachers, and a high percentage of the nurses and health and science technicians employed by local medical facilities.”121

119

See Hiltonsmith (2013). Fabricant and Brier, 22–23, 92–93, 130. 121 https://www.cuny.edu/about/cuny-city/. 120

56

A. R. Nelson

Its website goes on to stress CUNY’s role in the education of computer scientists as well as “twenty-first-century” engineers. Clark Kerr would be delighted to see that CUNY’s various cooperative programs with city agencies involve “tens of thousands” of first-generation college students each year, many of them members of racial and ethnic minority groups. Going forward, the challenge for CUNY, as for higher-education systems in other bay area mega-cities, will be to balance educational excellence with equal opportunity. The long-celebrated San Francisco bay area largely failed to address these challenges and now faces huge problems related to economic inequality.122 Silicon Valley may turn out to be a lesson in how not to build a successful knowledge economy. While the expansion of educational opportunities in California in the 1960s was not without controversy and conflict, the failure of high-tech leaders to manage inequality may lead to even greater tumult in the 2020s and beyond. Will higher education for human-capital development in New York be any better? Perhaps the case of CUNY offers some clues. Since the 1960s, CUNY has granted nearly 1.5 million degrees, and more than 75% of its graduates remain in the city. In many ways, CUNY holds the key to higher education in New York, and its history carries lessons for the future as the world considers it approach to higher education for human-capital development across its diverse and dynamic bay areas.

References Abbott, F. C. (1958). Government policy and higher education: A study of the regents of the University of the State of New York, 1784–1949 (pp. 214–221). Cornell University Press. Benedict, E. C. (1850). An address delivered at the first anniversary of the free academy of the city of New York. Wm. C. Bryant and Co. Berrol, S. C. (1976). Education and economic mobility: The Jewish experience in New York City, 1880–1920. American Jewish History Quarterly, 65(3), 257–271. Carmichael, O. J. (1955). New York establishes a State University. Vanderbilt University Press. Cohen, R. (1993). When the old left was young: Student radicals and America’s first mass student movement, 1929–1941. Oxford University Press. Connery, R. H., & Benjamin, G. (1979). Rockefeller of New York: Executive power in the statehouse (pp. 306–312). Cornell University Press. Cosenza, M. E. (1925). The establishment of the college of the city of New York as the free academy in 1847, Townsend Harris, Founder: A chapter in the history of education. The Associate alumni of the College of the city of New York. Crow, C. (1939). He opened the door of Japan: Townsend Harris and the story of his amazing adventures in establishing American relations with the Far East. Harper and Brothers. Dennett, T. (1922). Americans in Eastern Asia: A critical study of United States’ policy in the Far East in the nineteenth century (pp. 347–366). Barnes and Noble Inc. Dim, J. (2001). The miracle on Washington square: New York University. Lexington Books. Dyer, C. (1990). Protest and the politics of open admissions: The impact of the Black and Puerto Rican students’ community (of City College). PhD dissertation, CUNY Graduate Center. Edel, A. (1990). The struggle for academic democracy: Lessons from the 1938 “revolution” in New York’s City Colleges (pp. 41–42). Temple University Press. 122

https://www.cuny.edu/about/cuny-city/.

2 Higher Education and Human Capital …

57

Fabricant, M., & Brier, S. (2016). Austerity blues: Fighting for the soul of public higher education (p. 53). Johns Hopkins University Press. Frydl, K. (1990). The G.I. Bill. Cambridge University Press. Glazer, J. (1981). A case study of the decision in 1976 to initiate tuition for matriculated undergraduate students in the City University of New York. PhD dissertation, New York University. Goldberg, B. (2014). ‘That Jewish Crowd’: The 1949 CCNY student strike and the politics of fair education law in New York, 1945–1950. New York History, 95(4) (Fall 2014), 584–604. Gordon, S. (1975). The transformation of the City University of New York, 1945–1970. PhD dissertation, Columbia University. Gorelick, S. (1981). City College and the Jewish Poor: Education in New York, 1880–1924 (pp. 87– 88). Rutgers University Press. Gruber, C. S. (1972). Academic freedom at Columbia University, 1917–1918: The case of James McKeen Cattell. AAUP Bulletin, 58(3), 297–305. Harvard University Committee on the Objectives of a General Education a Free Society. (1945). General education in a free society: Report of the Harvard committee, with a foreword by James Bryant Conant. Harvard University Press. Heller, L. G. (1973). The death of the American University, with special reference to the collapse of City College of New York (pp. 195–196). Arlington House. Hester, J. M. (1971). New York University: The Urban University Coming of Age. Newcomen Society. Hiltonsmith, R. (2013). New York’s great cost shift: How higher education undermines the future middle class. Briefing Paper, Demos. http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/NYG reatCostShift.pdf Humphrey, D. (1976). From King’s College to Columbia, 1746–1800. Columbia University Press. Kerr, C. (1968). The Urban Grant University: A model for the future. City College Press. Kettler, D., & Lauer, G. (Eds.). (2005). Exile, science, and Bildung: The contested legacies of German emigre intellectuals. Palgrave Macmillan. Lavin, D. E., Alba, R. D., & Silberstein, R. A. (1981). Right versus privilege: The open-admissions experiment at City University of New York. Free Press. Lavin, D. E., & Hyllegard, D. (1996). Changing the odds: Open admissions and the life chances of the disadvantaged. Yale University Press. Marshak, R. E. (1973). Problems and prospects of an Urban Public University (p. 11). City College Press. Marshak, R. E. (1975). Problems and prospects of an Urban Public University. Daedalus, Winter. Marshak, R. E. (1982). Academic renewal in the 1970s: Memoirs of a City College President (p. 51). University Press of America Inc. New York Board of Higher Education. (1953). The road before us for our public colleges: The college of the City of New York: The City College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, Queens College: Report of the Chairman of the Board of Higher Education, May 1950–May 1953. Newt Davidson Collective. (1974). Crisis at CUNY. Newt Davidson Collective. Podair, J. (2008). The strike that changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis. Yale University Press. Rudy, S. W. (1949). The college of the City of New York: A history, 1847–1947 (pp. 11–12, 38). City College Press. Schappes, M. (1941). Letters from the Tombs. Schappes Defense Committee. Wechsler, H. (1977). The qualified student: A history of selective college admissions in America (pp. 280–281). Wiley. Wechsler, H. (2010). The temporary commission survey of bias in admissions. In J. B. Clark, W. B. Leslie, & K. P. O’Brien (Eds.), SUNY at Sixty: The promise of the State University of New York (pp. 29–38). State University of New York Press. Whitehead, J. S. (1973). The separation of college and state: Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale, 1776–1876. Yale University Press.

58

A. R. Nelson

Wright, H. N. (1953). A college leads and a college learns: Fruitful years at City College, New York, 1941–1952 (p. 35). Zook, G., et al. (1947). President’s commission on higher education for democracy: A report of the president’s commission on higher education (Vols. 1–6). Government Printing Office.

Chapter 3

Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area: Based on the Relationship Among Universities, Government and the Japanese Economy Weida Deng Abstract Despite the rising number of private universities in Japan, the population of 18-year-olds has been declining. Owing to insufficient enrolment, many private universities in the Kanto Region moved campuses to central Tokyo to attract students. This move led to increased population density in Tokyo and economic depression in the surrounding areas. The Japanese government reacted by introducing relevant policies such as controlling the enrolment of some universities and excessive personnel in some industries. This study analysed the relationship among private universities, the Japanese government and the Japanese economy in the context of the operational crisis. The study found that the overexpansion of private universities in Tokyo has brought considerable pressure on Tokyo and negative impacts on the economy of surrounding areas. Government policies and economic development limited the development of private universities in certain ways, which resulted in a mutual restrictive relationship among universities, the government and society. Keywords Tokyo Bay Area · Private universities · Operation crisis

Problem Statement and Existing Studies The Tokyo Bay Area is one of the most famous bay areas. Tokyo Bay Area is referred to as “One Metropolis Three Prefectures”. It covers Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, Saitama Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. The Bay Area economy is an important form of coastal economy and a prominent highlight of the international economic map. In general, the bay area has a major function of leading innovation and clusters of cultures. Higher education plays an important role in the economic development of the Bay Area. The role of universities in the Bay Area economy is inextricably linked to government decisions. Currently, there are 2,158,145 students of private universities in Japan, of which 1,047,296 are in the Tokyo Bay Area, accounting for W. Deng (B) Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. H. Mok (ed.), Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6_3

59

60

W. Deng

48.5%.1 This chapter takes Tokyo Bay Area as an example to explore the relationship among universities, government and economy. As Japan’s population of 18-year-olds shrinks and the number of private universities surges, a growing number of private universities in Japan suffer from a shortage of students. Today, the undersupply of private universities has become a regular topic in the cabinet office and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (hereinafter ‘MEXT’). In 1989, only 14 under-enrolled private universities were in Japan, which accounted for 3.9%. However, since 2008, the number of under-enrolled private universities in Japan has soared to 40%.2 Students tend to enrol in large and prestigious universities or those located in large cities, resulting in a lack of students at small universities and those located in remote areas. It brought many students to universities in Tokyo but also deprived the surrounding Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba Prefectures of students, consequently causing an economic slump. This phenomenon has put private higher education in the Tokyo Bay Area at risk. There are few studies on the relationship among universities, government and economy. The existing researches on the operation crisis of private universities in Japan mainly focus on the following aspects: First, the policy and legal issues of private universities under the management crisis, such as the relevant policies, legal issues, and procedures when the university goes bankrupt. Iwasaki (2005) compared private universities facing operation crisis in Japan with those in the United States. The United States has a good student protection mechanism when universities face operation crisis. This never happen in Japan.3 Secondly, how universities respond to operation crisis. In addition to the two most common forms, closures and mergers, Dou (2014) lists the two forms of transition: women’s universities starting to admit men and transfer private universities into public universities.4 Iwasaki (2019) provide case of transferring schools or departments between different private universities.5 Thirdly, the impacts of university closure, including the whereabouts of students, the distribution of debt, and the impact on graduates. Using the method of questionnaire survey, Iwasaki (2005) conducted a survey among the staff of private universities and found that the government did not have sufficient protection mechanism for bankrupt universities and students of those universities.6

文部科学省. 学校基本調査—令和 2 年度 結果の概要— [R]. 東京都: 文部科学省, 2020. 文部科学省. 学校基本調査 [EB/OL]. (2020-12-25) [2021-04-22]. http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/ estat/NewList.do?tid=000001011528. 3 Iwasaki (2004). 4 Dou (2014). 5 Iwasaki (2019). 6 Iwasaki (2005). 1 2

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

61

Most of the researches focus on private universities across Japan, and the research contents are related to the policy and legal issues of universities under the management crisis. The contribution of this study is that it focuses on and analyzes the causes of the management crisis of the private universities from the aspects of politics and economy in the Tokyo Bay Area, the capital region of Japan.

Factors Affecting the Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area Private universities account for 77% of all Japanese universities. According to MEXT, approximately 40% of these private universities are under-enrolled. However, not all the under capacity universities will close immediately. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, only 15 private universities in Japan have closed, which is not high. For some private universities, the university is only one of the institutions set up by its legal entity. For example, although the gap between the income and expenditure of its educational activities has been in a state of deficit due to the large assets held by Soka University, it has been happily operating amid the state of loss. Apart from Soka University, the legal person has opened kindergartens, middle schools and high schools worldwide. The cooperation even opened a university in the United States. Therefore, despite the university deficit, the cooperation will not lead to an economic crisis. It is expected that Soka University will take another 460 years to be closed even if it is running in red, stated by Keichi Yamamoto, a professor at Hokuriku University. Private universities will go bankrupt in two ways: stoppage of enrolment and abolishment of the university itself or the bankruptcy and liquidation by the school legal person or the establishment of the legal person itself. In the former, the university will stop enrolling students, but the legal person of the university will continue to exist. In the latter, the school corporation itself will disappear. Tokyo Jogakkan College is an example of the former situation. The legal person of this university was founded during the long history of the Meiji Period. The university stopped enrolment in 2013 and officially closed in 2017. Nonetheless, Tokyo Jogakkan continued operating its primary, middle and high schools under the same legal entity, although the university itself has closed. Souzou Gakuen University which closed in 2013 exemplifies the latter. Owing to its loose management, the university’s assets shrank, and its financial statements were falsified. Therefore, MEXT forcibly dissolved universities with students still attending this school for the first time. This study sorts out the external factors that caused the private universities in Japan to fall into a management crisis, with four factors: low birth rate, intense competition, Japanese government policies and increase in education costs.

62

W. Deng

Fig. 3.1 Trends and the prediction of population of 18-year-olds in Japan (million) (Source MEXT in Japan/the Cabinet Office of Japan)

Low Birth Rate Japan’s birth rate has been falling and has been below the OECD average for several years. The population of 18-year-olds in Japan has been declining annually. Since 2010, Japan’s birth rate has been below the death rate, which means Japan has entered a depopulation society. The first post-war peak was in 1966 when Japan had 2.46 million 18-year-olds. In 1976, the population of 18-year-olds dropped for the second time, to 1.54 million. In 1992, Japan’s 18-year old population peaked at 2.05 million, which is the second peak since the Second World War. However, the age of 18 has not risen since 1992. In the decade since 2009, Japan’s 18-year-olds have stagnated. In 2019, Japan’s population was at 126.44 million. The Cabinet Office predicts that Japan’s 18-year-olds will continue to decline for the next 20 years. The declining speed is expected to be extremely rapid after 2021, to 1.01 million in 2023 and to 990,000 in 2031.7 Japan’s population will be less than 100 million by 2053 and 88.08 million by 2065, with one in every 2.6 people aged 65 and one in every three over 75.8 Japan is experiencing a rapid aging of fewer children than any other country (Fig. 3.1). Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Japan has entered a society in which anyone can attend a university as long as he or she is not picky about school or 文部科学省. 1 8 歳人口と高等教育機関への進学率等の推移 [EB/OL]. (2016-06-08) [2020-01-08]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chousa/koutou/069/gijiroku/__icsFiles/afield file/2016/06/08/1371868_7.pdf#search=%2718%E6%89%8. 8 内閣府.令和元年版高齢社会白書 (全体版) [EB/OL]. (2019-07-20) [2020-02-02]. https:// www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/whitepaper/w-2019/html/zenbun/index.html. 7

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

63

major and has no financial difficulties. The number of education capacity nationwide is larger than the actual number of applicants, and the number of applicants is lower than the number of students who can finally join a university. The shortage of students is not only found in small and remote private universities but also in many well-known private universities. To stay in business, these private universities must reform their disciplines, admissions methods and personnel systems. The Japanese government came up with a number of measures to counter the sharp decline in the birth rate. The Cabinet Office said in 2014 that annually accepting 200,000 immigrants from abroad was the only way Japan could sustain its population of 100 million in 100 years. Japan’s ageing population, which has been soaring for years, is expected to start falling by 2050 if it accepts annual immigration and boosts the birth rate. Without foreign immigration, Japan’s population would fall to 87 million in 2060 and 43 million in 2110.9 As of today, the increase in foreigners and the decrease in the domestic population have been a trend.

Intense Competition Despite the declining number of 18-year-olds, the number of private universities in Japan is rising in inverse proportion. The gross enrolment rate of higher education in Japan is extremely high, even surpassing the European and American countries. It is the country next to the United States that has completed the early massification of higher education and has entered the universalisation of higher education, which is attributed to the private higher education system in Japan. Moreover, MEXT has considerably shortened the evaluation time for the establishment of private universities. Teacher evaluation system has become flexible. The relaxation of the system has led to the establishment of a large number of private universities. As of December 25, 2020, there were 795 universities in Japan, including 86 national universities, 94 public universities and 615 private universities. Private universities account for 77.4% of the total number of universities and 74% of Japanese university students. Private universities in the Tokyo Bay Area account for 33.7% of the total number of private universities in Japan and 48.5% of the students of private universities nationwide10 (Fig. 3.2). Against the backdrop of growing size, the proportion of under-enrolled private universities is rising at an unprecedented rate. According to MEXT, Japan’s underenrolled private universities were only 3.9% in 1989, rising to 4.5% in 1993 and 8% in the single digits in 1998. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the

内閣府. 目指すべき日本の未来の姿について[EB/OL]. (2014-02-24) [2020-01-08]. http:// www5.cao.go.jp/keizai-shimon/kaigi/special/future/0224/shiryou_01.pdf. 10 文部科学省. 学校基本調査-令和 2 年度 結果の概要— [R]. 東京都: 文部科学省, 2020. 9

64

W. Deng

Fig. 3.2 Evolution of the number of Japanese universities since the 21st century (Source MEXT)

figure rose sharply to 28.2 and 39.7% in 2003 and 2007, respectively.11 In 2008, it jumped to 47.1%, with nearly half of private universities struggling with a shortage of students. Nevertheless, the number began to improve in 2010 and has been floating at approximately 40% since then. In 2012, the proportion of under-enrolled private universities rose again. However, the then curriculum reform in the National Centre Test for University Admissions used by national and public universities resulted in students skipping national and public universities and going to private ones instead. The number of applicants improved after 2017. However, although private universities in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefectures are expected to increase enrolment over the past two years, actual enrolment has declined for the second year in a row, and the overall under-enrolment of private universities has continued to rise12 (Fig. 3.3).

文部科学省. 高等教育の将来構想に関する 基礎データ[EB/OL]. (2017-04-13) [2020-0108]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chukyo/chukyo4/gijiroku/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2017/ 04/13/1384455_02_1.pdf.

11

12

[EB/OL]. (2019-08-01) [2020-05-11]. https://www.shigaku.go.jp/files/shigandoukou H31.pdf.

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

65

Fig. 3.3 Number and proportion of under-enrolled private universities. *This statistics excludes correspondence universities, universities that no longer admit students and universities run by enterprises (Source Japan’s MEXT/Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan)

Government Policies The Bay Area economy has a strong clustering tendency. Porter (1998) defined clusters as “geographic concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field that are linked by commonalities and complementarities”.13 The Tokyo Bay Area not only attracts many industries, but also a large number of universities. More than 40% of Japan’s university students are now in the Tokyo Bay Area. Meanwhile, there are 26% of Japan’s university students are in Tokyo.14 By 2040, the ministry predicts 200,000 fewer students outside Tokyo than the current number.15 Although nearly half of Japan’s private university students are in the Tokyo Bay Area, the majority of these students are in Tokyo. There are 207 private universities in the Tokyo Bay Area, but 129 of them are in Tokyo. Among private university students in the Tokyo Bay Area, 64.1% are in Tokyo.16 Due to the excessive concentration of higher education resources in Tokyo, the development of higher education in the Tokyo Bay Area is unbalanced. Faced with a shortage of students, many private universities in the capital circle have moved their campuses to the centre of Tokyo. The move has led to a rise in population density and a slump in the suburbs. The government has intervened in this phenomenon by introducing relevant policies. 13

Porter (1998). 文部科学省. 学校基本調査-令和 2 年度 結果の概要- [R]. 東京都: 文部科学省, 2020. 15 朝日新聞. 15 年間で 100 大学が消滅 ! ? 危ない大学の見分け方[EB/OL]. (2017-08-31) [2020-07-13]. https://dot.asahi.com/dot/2017082900048.html?page=1. 16 文部科学省. 学校基本調査-令和 2 年度 結果の概要- [R]. 東京都: 文部科学省, 2020. 14

66

W. Deng

They restricted the enrolment of some private universities and disciplines to relieve the pressure of Tokyo’s population and overstaffing in some industries. However, such intervention made things worse. The following are the government actions.

Restrictions on Private University Admissions Many private universities located in the suburbs of Tokyo moved campuses to the centre of Tokyo to attract students. To limit the concentration of population in the city centre, the government limited the number of students admitted to private universities in central Tokyo. In recent years, many private universities located in the suburbs of Tokyo built new campuses in downtown Tokyo or completely moved their campuses to the city centre to attract other students. The move of private universities to downtown Tokyo resulted in a redistribution of Tokyo’s population transportation. From 2015 to 2017, several large private transportation companies in the Tokyo Bay Area experienced a decline in the revenue of student tickets. These enterprises include Odakyu Railway, Tobu Railway, Seibu Railway and Keio Corporation, the four largest transportation companies in the capital circle. Three of them suffered from reductions of student monthly ticket revenue for two consecutive years. In 2016, all four companies suffered from a reduction of the income from student monthly pass. Another direct reason for the decline in student pass revenue is the relocation of a large number of private university campuses. For example, Otsuma Women’s University which was originally only 5 min’ walk away from a station of Odakyu Railway, moved two colleges to Tokyo from 2016 to 2017. Thereafter, Otsuma Women’s University’s suburban campus was reduced to one college. The station’s daily passenger flow dropped to 2.4% from the previous year, the largest fall of all the Odakyu Railway stations. The Keio Railway station located near the Odakyu Railway station also lost a large number of transfer passengers. Kyorin University, located next to the Hachioji Station on the Keio Line, moved its suburban campus to the centre of Tokyo in April 2016, taking 3,500 students, leaving only a sports field on the Hachioji Campus. The station lost more than 4,000 regular passengers a day. MEXT announced in September 2017 that it would control enrolment of private universities in central Tokyo to prevent crowding in the city centre. A huge task for private transport companies in the Tokyo Bay Area is to reduce the population density in central Tokyo. Most of the workers live in the suburbs or near Tokyo in the Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba Prefectures. They take trams from the suburbs to work in the city centre during the day and return to the suburbs in the evening. Many private universities are located in the suburbs, and students attend school during the day in the opposite direction. However, the relocation of university campuses has resulted in the concentration of students and workers in the city centre, which led to the recession in the suburbs and increased the pressure of the morning and evening rush hours on the rail.

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

67

The Japanese government restricted the number of students attending private universities. Students who exceed the quota will no longer receive university grants.17 Japan’s budget on higher education is low among OECD countries. Moreover, Japan’s public finance tends to favour top universities. After the National University Reform in April 2004, the funds annually provided by the Japanese government based on the evaluation became one of the main sources of financing for national universities. This process has widened the wealth gap between public and private universities, inhibited the development of the higher education industry and affected the operation of private universities. In 2018, the Japanese government funded 627.5 billion yen in private universities, and these subsidies account for 9.9% of the average income of private universities.18 If universities cannot obtain the subsidies, they cannot make ends meet. In response, prestigious private universities such as Waseda University and Keio University have raised the difficulty of entrance exams, reduced the number of qualified students and increase the competition. In 2017, all private universities in Tokyo with more than 2,000 students were restricted in their enrolments. Waseda University, Keio University, Sophia University and Tokyo University of Science reduced the number of qualified students by a total of 1,841. The five schools of MARCH (i.e. Meiji University, Aoyama Gakuin University, Rikkyo University, Chuo University and Hosei University) reduced the number of qualified students by 6,893.19 Whereas elite colleges reduced the number of qualified students, many private universities that were underrepresented benefited from it. Students who could not enter top private universities fill the gap at these underrepresented private universities. Compared with the past, many students do not choose to return to high school to repeat senior year study but proceed directly to the admitted universities, which also bring students to the private universities with insufficient enrolment.

Intervention for Medical Universities and Disciplines The other is the intervention in medical universities and disciplines. Owing to the oversupply of doctors and private clinics in Japan, the Japanese government has increased the difficulty for doctors to take national examinations, resulting in a shortage of students applying for medical universities. Among them, the examination of dentists was the toughest, and the shortage of dental students was the most serious. In 2010, Japan had more than 100,000 dentists. The number of dental clinics 文部科学省. 平成 31 年度以降の定員管理に係る私立大学等経常費補助金の 取扱につ いて [EB/OL]. (2018-09-11) [2020-03-28]. https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/shinkou/070 21403/002/002/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2018/09/19/1409177.pdf. 18 [EB/OL]. (2018-08-31) [2020-03-28]. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/235652. 19 週刊ダイヤモンド. 私大志願者数に大きな動き 合格者数抑制で文系浪人増に [EB/OL]. (2018-10-02) [2020-01-08]. http://diamond.jp/articles/-/143692. 17

68

W. Deng

nationwide outnumbered convenience stores. Tokyo’s dental clinics are closing at a rate of one a day as dentists increased and patients shrank. Japan is adding approximately 1,500 dentists a year. Many older ones are not retiring, and the country’s shrinking population is pushing the dental industry into oversupply. To solve the problem of too many dentists, the Japanese government put forward the policy of raising the difficulty of the national examination for medical students and limiting the number of passers every year. The increase in the difficulty of the exam and the decrease in the number of qualified students led to an increase in the number of students retaking the national medical exam the following year. Now, only 30% of students take the exam for the first time. The difficulty of the exam discouraged many students from specialising in medicine and dentistry. Under government control, many universities experienced a less than 50% drop in the passing rate of the national medical exam. Many private dental schools even made their students stay down to adjust their exam passing rates up, because the government will reduce subsidies to schools with low national exam passing rates. Owing to the increase in the difficulty of the examination and the limitation of qualified students, the repeat and dropout rates of the private dental university have largely increased. The Japanese Association of Private Dental schools recommended to the government the establishment of some dental specialties in the early years of the national universities and that public universities should be merged to reduce the total number of dental specialties in the country to relieve the shortage of students in private dental schools and to fill the vacancies. The association believes that in today’s society, even with an oversupply of doctors, a shortage of doctors is anticipated in Japan in the coming decades due to a lack of enrolment in related specialties. The shortage of pharmaceutical professional students is even more severe than that of medical specialty. Graduating from the department of pharmacy does not mean that you can become a pharmacist, as some private universities’ pharmacy majors aim to train as researchers and civil servants. They cannot obtain the pharmacist certificate even after graduation. Therefore, fewer and fewer people are willing to apply for the pharmacy academic programme.

Increase in Education Costs A final external factor is the rising cost of education. Education is an important foundation for personal and family happiness, and every family with children cannot avoid spending money on education. With the continuous improvement of the social demand for talents in all aspects, the Japanese people’s awareness and pursuit of higher education has seen remarkable improvement. Since the 1960s, with the increasing demand for talents in Japanese society, the pursuit of higher education has increased. Private universities began to expand their enrolment in large numbers, and a large number of students enrolled in private universities. In the 1960s, three-quarters of Japan’s university students were enrolled in

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

69

private institutions. By the late 1960s, more than 70% of Japan’s undergraduate students went to private universities. However, the Japanese government at that time, like today, paid more attention to national universities. Private universities depended on debt to build buildings and pay their teachers. The burden of debt was then placed on students by raising fees for enrolment, tuition and facilities. However, many private universities continue facing a shortage of students. This situation worsened the burden for the students and their parents. Considering the high burden of education, most Japanese families choose the national universities with low tuition and high reputation as their first choice. However, getting into national universities requires not only the ability but also the financial support. This reality pushed up the entrance requirements for the national universities. Given the overburden of education, most Japanese families have turned to cheap and prestigious national universities as their first choice. In the high school stage, families must pay for the child’s expenditure including tuition, transportation, teaching materials and school supplies, among others. When applying for a university, you must pay the registration fee of all the schools. Even if you fail admission, the application fees are refundable. After entering the university, students must pay for the course, tuition, facilities and rents, to name a few. According to statistics from Japan Finance Corporation (JFC), the average cost from entering high school to graduating from university in Japan is 10.55 million yen per person, including 3.45 million yen in high school and 7.11 million yen in university. The cost of attending different types of colleges varies. The average cost of admission to Japanese universities is 957,000 yen, of which the average tuition for science majors in private universities is 1.03 million yen, and the average tuition for social science majors is 940,000 yen. The average admission fee for public universities in Japan is 796,000 yen. After enrolment, the average annual tuition fee is 1.2 million yen for public universities, 1.78 million yen for science majors and 1.5 million yen for liberal arts majors at private universities, 1.6 times and 1.4 times the average annual tuition fees at public universities, respectively. Consequently, the total cost of science majors in private universities reaches 11.57 million yen, and that for social science majors reaches 10.35 million yen. The total cost of attending a public university in Japan is 8.63 million yen.20 Education now accounts for 40.1% of the annual income of a typical Japanese family of four (i.e. parents and two children), making it a huge burden. For people from Okinawa, education costs account for 110.3% of those earning less than 2 million yen per year and 129.3% of those living on the island, far more than can be paid.21 The average annual expenditure on education is even higher than the annual income of some residents, which puts unprecedented pressure on many Japanese people to receive education. Taking the University of Tokyo as an example, the tuition fee of the University of Tokyo does not distinguish between disciplines, majors and grades. The fees 日本政策金融公庫. 子供 2 人世帯の年収に占める教育費負担は 40 % に到達 [EB/OL]. (2013-12-13) [2017-11-01]. https://www.jfc.go.jp/n/findings/pdf/kyouikuhi_chousa_k_h25.pdf. 21 沖縄タイムス. 低所得世帯、年収上回る教育費 沖縄離島は 1.3 倍[EB/OL]. (2016-02-05) [2017-11-01]. http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/articles/-/23549. 20

70

W. Deng

Table 3.1 Comparison of undergraduate tuition fees between the University of Tokyo and Waseda University in 2020 (million yen) Grade

School of Education, Waseda University

School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Waseda University

The University of Tokyo

1

116.6

174.9

53.6

2

116.4

180.1

53.6

3

116.4

181.1

53.6

4

120.4

186.1

53.6

Total

469.8

722.1

214.3

Source Homepage of the University of Tokyo, Waseda University

include two items: the admission fee for the first year and the annual tuition fee. The admission fee is 282,000 yen, and the annual tuition fee is 553,800 yen. The number has not changed since 1999 and does not increase with grade level.22 Waseda University, a private university with a high reputation, charges several fees. Apart from the admission fee and course fees, students must also pay internship fees, laboratory fees and library fees, among others. Each department and discipline of Waseda University has different charging standards, and the amount increases with the change in grade. A huge difference exists in the amount of money between different disciplines in private universities, with the most expensive major being 1.7 times that of the cheapest major. Among them, Life Science and Medical Bioscience are the most expensive majors, with a total tuition of 7.22 million yen for four years, and the School of Education, with the lowest tuition, which is 4.7 million yen for four years.23,24 By comparison, the total cost of the cheapest major at Waseda University is twice that of the University of Tokyo (Table 3.1). Medical departments have the most expensive courses of all the offerings at private universities. For example, at a famous private medical school in Juntendo University, the total tuition fee is 2.9 million yen during the first year. From the second year onwards, the tuition fee rises to 3.58 million yen per year, and the total cost for six years is 20.8 million yen. With first-year tuition of 2.9 million yen, Juntendo University is already the cheapest among Japan’s 31 private medical schools.25 At the School of Medicine of Keio University, one of the most difficult medical schools in Japan, tuition fee is 3.84 million yen in the first year and 3.64 million yen in the 東京大学. 入学料・授業料 [EB/OL]. (2017-11-01) [2020-03-19]. https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ ja/admissions/tuition-fees/e03.html. 23 早稲田大学. [EB/OL]. (2019-10-01) [2020-03-26]. https://www.waseda.jp/inst/admission/ass ets/uploads/2019/10/2020_Sep_gakuhi_gakubu.pdf. 24 早稲田大学. 2020 年度学部入学者 学費・諸会費 一覧表 (2 ~ 4 年度) [EB/OL]. (2019-1001) [2020-03-26]. https://www.waseda.jp/inst/admission/assets/uploads/2017/11/2018_gakubu_2. pdf. 25 順天堂大学. 入学金・学費 [EB/OL]. (2008-01-01) [2020-03-26]. https://www.juntendo.ac.jp/ med/exam/gakuhi.html. 22

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

71

second year, a total of 22.06 million yen for six years.26 By contrast, some of the less well-known private medical departments are more expensive. For example, the tuition fee of the Faculty of Medicine of Kyorin University is 10.09 million yen in the first year and 5.5 million yen in the second year. The total tuition fee for the six years is 37.59 million yen, whilst the average annual tuition for other disciplines is between 1 million yen and 2 million yen.27 Therefore, for most Japanese, studying in the medical school of a private university has become a ‘fantasy’. Consequently, private universities lose tens of millions of yen for every student they lose in medicine, pharmacy and dentistry. Compared with the national universities with uniform charging standards, the total tuition fees of the medical department of the private university are astronomical. Annual tuition fee at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tokyo is 536,000 yen or 3.22 million yen for six years. Even Juntendo University, the private medical school with the lowest tuition fees, charges more than six times as much as the University of Tokyo. Apart from tuition fees, accommodation is also a big expenditure. Most private universities in Japan cannot set up dormitories on campus. Many universities work with real estate companies off campus to set up apartments that assume the name of universities’ dormitories but are actually managed by real estate companies. However, the quantity is extremely limited. In Japan, 41.9% of students rent houses on their own. On average, renting a room costs 921,000 yen a year for a child. A deposit on moving into a new house, plus the cost of furniture and daily necessities, cost an average of 480,000 yen a year per student.28 Faced with the above high costs, most families chose national or public universities, which are cheaper and well-known. However, admission to national universities is highly competitive. According to a survey by Japan’s MEXT, schools with a high proportion of students receiving school subsidies have worse average performance than those with a low proportion of students receiving school subsidies. MEXT also investigated the relationship between the average annual family income and school performance and found that the higher the average annual family income, the better the performance. The higher the family income, the higher the percentage of students who went to four-year colleges after high school.29 According to the survey by the Japanese Student Service Association (JASSO), in 2014, the average annual income of national universities’ students is 8.39 million yen, and the average annual income of private university students is 8.26 million yen.30 This phenomenon is the first time in history that the average annual household 慶応義塾大学. 【学部】学費 [EB/OL]. (2019-11-29) [2020-03-26]. https://www.keio.ac.jp/ja/ admissions/fees/. 27 杏林大学. 学生納付金/入学検定料 [EB/OL]. (2019-01-01) [2020-03-26]. http://www.kyorinu.ac.jp/univ/center/nyugaku/payment/. 28 文部科学省. 第 1 章 家計負担の現状と教育投資の水準 [EB/OL]. (2007-09-01) [2017-1102]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpab200901/detail/1296707.htm. 29 文部科学省. 第 1 章 家計負担の現状と教育投資の水準 [EB/OL]. (2007-09-01) [2017-1102]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpab200901/detail/1296707.htm. 30 独立行政法人日本学生支援機構. 平成 26 年度学生生活調査 [EB/OL]. (2014-03-01) [201711-02]. http://www.jasso.go.jp/about/statistics/gakusei_chosa/2014.html. 26

72

W. Deng

Fig. 3.4 Reasons behind the crisis of private universities

income of students from national universities has surpassed that of students from private universities. This phenomenon interrupted the balance between the rich and the poor. National universities originally set low tuition fees so that students from poor families could receive an equal education. However, today’s students are mostly from privileged families and are paying lower tuition fees. To attend a national university, one must attend a prestigious private high school apart from attending training classes. National universities have become the first choice of many wealthy families. Conversely, poorer families had to attend more expensive private universities. In Japan, 76.3% of students gave up college because of the high tuition fees. Among the students who did not attend college, 72.1% believed that the financial constraints were greater than the ability constraints (Fig. 3.4).

Crisis Response Mechanism of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area Japan’s unique society of having fewer children led to a decline in the population and a corresponding decline in the number of 18-year-olds, depriving Japanese universities of fresh students. Despite the shrinking population, the number of private universities is rising, intensifying competition among colleges. The National University Reform in 2004 brought added autonomy to the national universities and intensified pressure to the private universities. These factors were the main reasons why a large number of private universities attract students by moving their campuses, changing the setting of disciplines and majors. The overexpansion of private universities in Tokyo has brought enormous pressure to Tokyo and led to the economic depression

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

73

in the surrounding areas. However, the government policies and economic development restricted the development of private universities. Thus, a mutually restrictive relationship existed among universities, the government and society. Excessive government intervention brought negative effects on educational opportunities, the geographical distribution of universities and transportation.

Standardise Criteria and Evaluation Mechanism MEXT is in charge of the university set up and approval; the management; financial support; teaching quality; providing facilities and equipment and determining the number of teachers and students, course contents and the degrees. The University Establishment Standards (UES) was set up for private universities and disciplines, but the audit scope is limited to relevant conditions before the establishment. The UES only has the right to review the setting standards before the establishment of schools and not after the establishment of universities and departments. Once the universities and departments are established, MEXT will no longer have the audit authority and will be fully transferred to the third-party evaluation institutions. The existing schools require strict auditing by the Japan Institution for Higher Education Evaluation (JIHEE). MEXT believes that many private universities overestimate the quality of their schools in the early days of setting up, resulting in a shortage of students, teachers, classrooms, libraries and laboratory facilities. Many universities fail to recruit teachers to fill vacancies due to the resignation and the retirement of full-time teachers and thus require other teachers to fill the vacant teachers’ courses, which violates the rules. This situation increases the burden of other teachers, affects the teaching work and drags down the teaching quality. Some universities were heavily in debt due to insufficient students. Accordingly, MEXT investigated them for substandard schooling conditions many times in the process of running the school. Eventually, they could only apply for bankruptcy reconstruction through the civil reproduction law. Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University and the former Hagi International University successfully cancelled their debts via this route. What makes private universities meet the evaluation standards and funding standards is not the evaluation institution but the conditions and quality after running the school and the self-consciousness. Both the UES formulated by the government and the university evaluation of the third-party institutions responsible for the JIHEE provide only the minimum standards for running the schools. The quality should be controlled subjectively and actively by the school authorities. Subsidies from MEXT are one of the main sources of support for many private universities, which account for only 10% of their revenues, but most would fail without them. The Japanese Ministry of Finance points out that between 2012 and 2016, half of the private universities funded by MEXT were under-enrolled, more than 40% of them were under-enrolled for five consecutive years and more than 20% of the total private university funding was allocated to under-enrolled private universities. In 2018, MEXT and the Ministry of Finance discussed the financing policy of private

74

W. Deng

universities and decided to tighten the financing policy. They decided to reduce the special subsidy for universities with insufficient enrolment for five consecutive years and private universities with poor education quality. If the student’s capacity is below 90%, the amount of financial aid will be reduced by 2–50%. If the student’s capacity is below 5%, the financial aid will be removed from the list. By 2019, MEXT further stipulated that universities with fewer assets than liabilities, three consecutive years of deficits, and three consecutive years of student capacity less than 80%, universities with over 1.5 times the required number of students and departments with student capacity less than 50% would no longer provide financial aid.31 Private universities that broke the rules will be appropriately reduced. The government will also take the education quality into the objective evaluation index, with reasonable distribution as the goal.32 If private universities improve the quality of education, they have the opportunity to receive higher subsidies. However, some private universities receive fewer funds because of the quality of their education even if the student numbers meet the requirement.

External Cooperative Funding External cooperation and funding include financial support and policy support. Private universities, government agencies and enterprises are external institutions that can seek funding. The main financial source of private universities is the application, tuition and facility fees paid by students. However, after the National University Reform in 2004, MEXT granted more stable financial guarantee to national universities, which widened the gap between national universities and private universities. The lack of funding has led to a series of operational difficulties for private universities, such as the inability to set up laboratories and purchase equipment, and the substitution of part-time teachers for full-time teachers to save money, which has indirectly led to curriculum inadequacy. A study conducted a questionnaire survey on crisis awareness among staff of private universities. The survey showed that 70.6% of these institutions felt their respective management crisis, and 100% of them predict their university’s closure in the near future. More than 60% of employees think the education ministry’s protection mechanism for bankrupt universities and their students does not work (Iwasaki, 2005).33 In bay areas, clustering tendency not only happen in the economic development, but also in the development of higher education. The cluster development of higher education promotes resource sharing and efficiency. The university may cooperate

文部科学省. 私立大学等経常費補助金取扱要領 [EB/OL]. (2020-03-10) [2020-03-28]. https://www.mext.go.jp/content/20200313-mxt_sigakujo-100001420_2.pdf. 32 東京私大教連中央執行委員会. 私立大学、4つのテーマ [R]. 東京都: 第42回首都圏私大 研究集会, 2019. 33 Iwasaki (2005). 31

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

75

with other private universities or form an association of universities, which supplement both teaching and equipment. In addition, capitals from the enterprises came to the rescue. Enterprises and universities can form long-term partnerships. Companies can offer internships and field studies for universities, and universities can in turn provide talents to companies.

Expand Enrolment of International Students In 2008, under the initiative of the former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese government proposed the ‘Plan to Accept 300,000 International Students’ as part of the implementation of the ‘Globalisation Strategy’. Under the plan, 300,000 students would be recruited to study in Japan by 2020.34 On this basis, the Japanese government established ‘The Top Global University Project’ (スーパーグローバ ル大学創成支援, also referred to as “TGUP”, “Super Global” or “SGU”), which is planned to last from 2014 to 2023. The project, funded by the Japanese government, aims to internationalise Japanese universities and enable graduates to take on global leadership positions. Funds can be used to hire international or internationally educated teachers to create internationally oriented undergraduate programmes and provide student support. After the introduction of relevant regulations and government reports, universities that have joined the programme changed the enrolment time and teaching methods to cater to the need of international standards and attract other foreign faculty and students. The move pushes other Japanese universities to the top of global rankings. Many universities have established teaching programmes in English as the language of instruction and set the date of enrolment in September each year to keep pace with the international community and attract other international students. The move is beneficial to attract both international and Japanese students. Many universities participating in the programme have increased opportunities to study abroad, with some requiring every student to study abroad for at least a year. However, not all universities have improved after the implementation of the international strategy. Some universities failed to attract foreign students and solve the enrolment problem. Attracting students, let alone foreign students, was a big problem for most universities not funded by the government programmes. Some universities only had a single digit number of foreign students with the expectation of at least 10 per major. Gakushuin Women’s College is one of the universities that has increased its enrolment in this way. Women’s universities are limited in their enrolment because of their educational policies. Moreover, the university has only three majors, two of which recruit foreign students: Japanese culture and international communication. During the five years from 2012 to 2017, each major planned to recruit 10 international students each year, but the actual number was only a single digit. In 2019,

34

福田康夫. 留学生30万人計画 [R]. 東京都: 文部科学省, 2008.

76

W. Deng

the number for both majors reached double digits for the first time, with 12 and 29 applicants, respectively, with an average enrolment multiplier of 1.7.35 In Japan, students can apply for only one national university at a time. However, simultaneous enrolment in several private universities is possible. Therefore, for most private universities, the expected number of enrolment is greater than the number of applicants. Therefore, the number of letters of admission is greater than the number of students who can finally enter the university. Foreign students have even become the main source of enrolment for some universities. An example is the Tokyo campus of Hagi International University.36 The school became a way for foreigners to stay in Japan and work illegally. A total of 606 students were in the campus in 2012, 605 were international students, with Chinese students accounting for 90%. The Immigration Bureau of Japan decided to investigate the campus because too many international students were working illegally and overtime. It found that 110 students were absent from classes or had not paid tuition fees. Seventy of them were missing. Subsequently, the Tokyo campus of Hagi International University was inspected and instructed by MEXT due to cramped classrooms and equipment problems. Thus, being an international student has become an illegal attempt for overstaying foreigners.

Adjust Disciplines and Major Settings Owing to the limited funds and shortage of full-time teachers, many private universities have only one major due to the limited conditions of running the schools. In some schools, nearly half of the teachers are part-time teachers, making it impossible not only to open new subjects but also to complete existing courses. The variety of subjects and specialties directly affect students’ willingness to apply. Many universities attract students by offering unique courses. For example, Hagi International University once attracted students by offering pottery and golf lessons, even bought golf course for students to use.37 However, the uniqueness of such courses does not bring additional students to the school. Instead, it puts schools in debt. The most important thing is to meet the needs of society. In the process of job hunting, enterprises attach great importance to the relevant qualification certificates of the graduates. Many schools attempt to set up majors related to the corresponding qualification certificates, such as education and nursing, to help students obtain the qualification certificates to improve their competitiveness. These private universities, with a shortage of students, are starting to offer courses in short supply but are most popular with students and their parents. What needs to be changed is not only the teaching material but also the policy of teaching. 学習院女子大学. 過去の入試データ [EB/OL]. (2019-05-01) [2020-03-19]. https://www.gwc. gakushuin.ac.jp/admission/pastdata.html. 36 Hagi International University was renamed Shiseikan Hall University in 2014. 37 石見空港 GC 田万川 C (山口県) を萩国際大学が買収 [EB/OL]. (2005-01-21) [2020-07-01]. http://www.mmjp.or.jp/tubaki-golf/newsfail/news294-iwami.html. 35

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

77

As mentioned above, ‘TGUP’ attracts students from all over the world. More and more universities offer majors with an international perspective, such as international relations, communication and regional studies. Many universities that do not participate in the programme also attract students from both Japan and abroad by offering courses in English or adding exchange programmes abroad.

Change in School Policy Many private universities have largely restricted their enrolment because of their policies. Major changes to ease the operation crisis include (1) expanding the range of applicants and (2) merging with other universities. Expanding the range of applicants is a common strategy for women’s universities to attract students. Women’s universities have been highly restricted in their enrolment because of their special educational policies. Many women’s universities are now opening up some majors or programmes to men to help ease the crisis. More than a dozen women’s universities across Japan now offer some courses to men. In addition, a few women’s universities have opened all their courses to men. In addition, a number of schools choose to merge with other universities. Over the past 20 years, more than 50 universities in Japan have merged with others. The merging of the two universities must meet certain conditions, such as similar geographical location and educational philosophy, complementary disciplines and equipment. At present, many private universities in Japan have benefited from these two methods and alleviated the management crisis.

Conclusion One of the special features of Japan’s higher education system is the high proportion of private universities, especially in the Tokyo Bay Area. Universities in Japan are categorised into national, public and private universities. Japan’s higher education system is characterised by strong national and public universities and weak private universities in teaching quality, financial support and operation. Although higher education of different forms legally has equal status, profound differences persist in terms of teachers, quantity and quality of students, funds, teaching level and land. The reasons for the huge gap between public and private universities lie in government policies and social phenomena. A low birth rate and an increasing number of private universities in Japanese society intensify the competition among private universities. The government’s policies put pressure on private universities and have had a negative impact on the regional economy around Tokyo. Not only the population of Tokyo’s suburbs is shrinking but also the profitability of many transport companies and surrounding industries. The economies around the capital are under pressure, whilst Tokyo’s population density

78

W. Deng

is becoming heavier. At the same time, the average annual income of Japanese has been declining for years, whereas the average cost of education has been rising. The rising cost of education led to a growing preference for prestigious and inexpensive national and public universities, but getting into the top tier requires more than cash. Admission to competitive national and public universities requires graduating from top high schools as well as extra after-school training, which is not affordable to every household. This phenomenon has upset the balance of the Japanese higher education system, causing many students from poor families to apply for expensive private universities or simply give up. The experiences of higher education system in the Tokyo Bay Area have served as a lesson for private higher education system of the world to prevent over-establishment of private higher education in the early stage to avoid excessive expansion. Intervention resulted in a big waste of money and resources. The result is an unhealthy status of student mind set, which is against the original intention of education. At the same time, universities should pay attention to the diversification of disciplines, especially in the fields of science, engineering and innovation, and actively seize enrolment of the students to avoid the operation crisis such as that of the private universities in Japan. In addition, the diversity of recruitment methods is important for private universities. The diversified enrolment methods and courses not only help alleviate the operation crisis but also increase the internationalisation of the school. Finally, strategic alliance with external institutions is an efficient option. Cooperation with enterprises and other universities can enhance each other’s competitiveness. The overexpansion of private universities in Tokyo brought intense pressure to the Japan’s capital circle and negative impacts on the surrounding regional economy. This social phenomenon will affect not only private universities but also, quite possibly, national and public universities in the near future. The impact is not limited to higher education but also affects related industries. As many private universities have added simpler admission methods to attract students, many after-school training classes have gone out of business. Moreover, attention is required not only to the operation crisis of private universities in Japan’s capital circle but also to those outside the Greater Tokyo Area. Considering that most students tend to migrate to the capital, nearly half of Japan’s university students now attend schools in Tokyo, putting enormous pressure on universities elsewhere, especially small private universities in other areas. More than half of the top 30 universities with the most applicants are from the capital circle. Among the 53 private universities with less than 70% capacity, only 8 of them are located in the Tokyo Bay Area.38 Other universities include many small private universities with fewer than 1,000 students. This phenomenon shows that the government policies and economic development restricted the development of private universities and resulted in a mutually restrictive 週刊朝日. 地方私大の深刻な定員割れ 再生ウルトラ C は「公立化」 [EB/OL]. (2017-1019) [2020-07-01]. https://dot.asahi.com/wa/2017101900017.html?page=1.

38

3 Operation Crisis of Private Universities in the Tokyo Bay Area …

79

relationship among universities, the government and society. In conclusion, excessive government intervention has a negative impact on the education population growth, university distribution and transportation relocation.

References Dou, X. H. (2014). The society with aging population and low birthrate and the crisis of the private universities in Japan. Journal of Higher Education, 35(9), 92–99. Porter, M. E. (1998). Clusters and the new economic competition. Harvard Business Review, 78, 77–90. 内閣府. 目指すべき日本の未来の姿について [EB/OL]. (2014-02-24) [2020-01-08]. http:// www5.cao.go.jp/keizai-shimon/kaigi/special/future/0224/shiryou_01.pdf 内閣府. 令和元年版高齢社会白書 (全体版) [EB/OL]. (2019-07-20) [2020-02-02]. https:// www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/whitepaper/w-2019/html/zenbun/index.html 学習院女子大学. 過去の入試データ [EB/OL]. (2019-05-01) [2020-03-19]. https://www.gwc.gak ushuin.ac.jp/admission/pastdata.html 岩崎保道. 大学再編の動向に関する一考察 [J], 高知大学学術研究報告, 2019, (68): 86–90. (Iwasaki, Y. (2019). Discussion on the trend of university restructuring. Research Reports of Kochi University, 68, 86–90.) 岩崎保道. 大学法人の破綻処理策構築のための政策提言 —文部科学省の対応方針及び危 機意識調査の分析を中心として [J]. 同志社政策科学研究, 2005, (7): 155–174. (Iwasaki, Y. (2005). Policy recommendations for constructing measures for insolvency cases of financial failure of universities: Focusing on analyzing the countermeasure plan and crisis awareness survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, culture, sports, science and technology. Doshisha University Policy & Management, 7, 155–174.) 岩崎保道. 私立大学における倒産処理策構築のための政策研究 [J]. 同志社政策科学研究, 2004, (6): 155–171. (Iwasaki, Y. (2004). Policy research for bankruptcy processing policy formulation of private universities. Doshisha University Policy & Management, 6, 155–171.) 慶応義塾大学. 【学部】学費 [EB/OL]. (2019-11-29) [2020-03-26]. https://www.keio.ac.jp/ja/ admissions/fees/ 文部科学省. 18 歳人口と高等教育機関への進学率等の推移 [EB/OL]. (2016-06-08) [202001-08]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chousa/koutou/069/gijiroku/__icsFiles/afieldfile/ 2016/06/08/1371868_7.pdf#search=%2718%E6%89%8 文部科学省. 学校基本調査 [EB/OL]. (2020-12-25) [2021-04-22]. http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/ estat/NewList.do?tid=000001011528 文部科学省. 私立大学等経常費補助金取扱要領 [EB/OL]. (2020-03-10) [2020-03-28]. https:// www.mext.go.jp/content/20200313-mxt_sigakujo-100001420_2.pdf 文部科学省. 第 1 章 家計負担の現状と教育投資の水準 [EB/OL]. (2007-09-01) [2017-11-02]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpab200901/detail/1296707.htm 文部科学省. 高等教育の将来構想に関する 基礎データ [EB/OL]. (2017-04-13) [2020-0108]. http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chukyo/chukyo4/gijiroku/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2017/ 04/13/1384455_02_1.pdf 文部科学省. 平成 31 年度以降の定員管理に係る私立大学等経常費補助金の 取扱につい て [EB/OL]. (2018-09-11) [2020-03-28]. https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/shinkou/070 21403/002/002/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2018/09/19/1409177.pdf 日本政策金融公庫. 子供 2 人世帯の年収に占める教育費負担は 4 0 % に到達 [EB/OL]. (2013-12-13) [2017-11-01]. https://www.jfc.go.jp/n/findings/pdf/kyouikuhi_chousa_k_h25.pdf [EB/OL]. (2019-08-01) [2020-05-11]. https://www.shigaku.go.jp/files/shigandoukou H31.pdf

80

W. Deng

早稲田大学. 2020年度学部入学者 入学金・学費・諸会費 一覧表 [EB/OL]. (2019-1001) [2020-03-26].https://www.waseda.jp/inst/admission/assets/uploads/2019/10/2020_Sep_gak uhi_gakubu.pdf 早稲田大学. 2020 年度学部入学者 学費・諸会費 一覧表 (2~4 年度) [EB/OL]. (2019-10-01 ) [2020-03-26]. https://www.waseda.jp/inst/admission/assets/uploads/2017/11/2018_gakubu_2. pdf 朝日新聞. 15 年間で 100 大学が消滅 ! ? 危ない大学の見分け方 [EB/OL]. (2017-08-31) [202007-13]. https://dot.asahi.com/dot/2017082900048.html?page=1 杏林大学. 学生納付金/入学検定料 [EB/OL]. (2019-01-01) [2020-03-26]. http://www.kyorin-u. ac.jp/univ/center/nyugaku/payment/ 東京大学. 入学料・授業料 [EB/OL]. (2017-11-01) [2020-03-19]. https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/ admissions/tuition-fees/e03.html 東京私大教連中央執行委員会.私立大学、 4 つのテーマ [R]. 東京都: 第 42 回首都圏私大研 究集会, 2019. [EB/OL]. (2018-08-31) [2020-03-28]. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/235652 沖縄タイムス. 低所得世帯、年収上回る教育費 沖縄離島は 1.3 倍 [EB/OL]. (2016-02-05) [2017-11-01]. http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/articles/-/23549 独立行政法人日本学生支援機構. 平成 26 年度学生生活調査 [EB/OL]. (2014-03-01) [201711-02]. http://www.jasso.go.jp/about/statistics/gakusei_chosa/2014.html 石見空港 GC 田万川 C (山口県) を萩国際大学が買収 [EB/OL]. (2005-01-21) [2020-07-01]. http://www.mmjp.or.jp/tubaki-golf/newsfail/news294-iwami.html 福田康夫. 留学生 30 万人計画 [R]. 東京都: 文部科学省, 2008. 週刊ダイヤモンド. 私大志願者数に大きな動き 合格者数抑制で文系浪人増に [EB/OL]. (2018-10-02) [2020-01-08]. http://diamond.jp/articles/-/143692 週刊朝日. 地方私大の深刻な定員割れ 再生ウルトラ C は「公立化」 [EB/OL]. (2017-10-19) [2020-07-01]. https://dot.asahi.com/wa/2017101900017.html?page=1 順天堂大学.入学金・学費 [EB/OL]. (2008-01-01) [2020-03-26]. https://www.juntendo.ac.jp/ med/exam/gakuhi.html

Chapter 4

Universities and New Growth Regional Ecosystems in the US and California John Aubrey Douglass

Abstract 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 (UC) system with a strong internal academic culture and devotion to public service, the story of its historical and contemporary success of its higher education system as an agent of economic development is closely linked to a number of key contextual factors discussed in this chapter. This includes 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, 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 on California and the UC system—a network of ten research-intensive campuses. Keywords New Growth Theory · Universities and Economic Development · Knowledge Based Economic Areas · Flagship Universities

J. A. Douglass (B) University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. H. Mok (ed.), Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6_4

81

82

J. A. Douglass

Introduction New Growth Theory is now a broadly accepted concept among business and university leaders, ministries and lawmakers of almost all political persuasions. The shared axiom essentially states that postmodern economies, and increasingly developing economies, are growing in their dependence on supporting “knowledge accumulation,” and encouraging the process of applying new knowledge in the marketplace. Innovation and new technologies depend increasingly on the number of people able and motivated to seek new innovations and technologies. Most importantly, modern adherents of New Growth Theory underscore the importance of investing in new knowledge creation to sustain growth. Along with government and the private sector, research universities play a pivotal role in building the productive regional and national ecosystems necessary for globally competitive economies. Universities in particular are significant actors for creating new knowledge and for attracting and educating talented people. The ability of business to innovate is also increasingly tied to acquiring knowledge from outside sources, including universities. Businesses generally prefer engagement with local or regional universities that have knowledge of the socioeconomic, cultural, and legal environment in which they operate, and that can produce talent suited to their business climate.1 Universities that are productive and economically engage thereby act as an anchor institution within regional economies. In part, the growing acceptance of New Growth Theory2 relates to a number of highly touted regional success stories—or what I term Knowledge Based Economic Areas (KBEAs) in this and past essays. In short, New Growth Theory emphasizes that economic growth results from the increasing returns associated with new knowledge. This includes policies that can help grow a regional or national economy by increasing knowledge rather than labor or capital creates opportunities for nearly boundless growth. The United States, and the California’ Bay Area technology hub in particular, are 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 universities, that wish to replicate their strengths within their own cultural and political terms. The following outlines some of the important contextual variables that help explain the attributes of KBEA ecosystems in the US, and in California, and the important 1

Rossi and Geuna (2015), March 31. Endogenous Growth is a term that emerged in the 1980s and emphasizes that economic growth is an outcome of an economic system, not simply conditioned resource or trade rich or poor regions or nations and other external forces. The theory also focuses on positive externalities and spillover effects of a knowledge-based economy that will lead to economic development. New Growth Theory builds on this concept by emphasizes that economic growth results from the increasing returns associated with new knowledge. Knowledge has different properties than other economic goods (being non-rival, and partly excludable) and creates opportunities for nearly boundless growth; For general descriptions of New Growth and Endogenous Growth Theory, see Romer (1994), Cortright (2001), Acemoglu (2009).

2

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

83

role of major universities—private and public institutions, but with a focus on the interplay of California’s public “Flagship University,” the University of California’s ten-campus system (UC). I also offer a brief discussion on the political and social environment that allows for KBEA’s to thrive and grow in their influence, and the applicability of the KBEA model in other parts of the world, including the Greater Bay area. There are many important higher education institutions in the US, but public Flagship Universities (research-intensive national leading institutions) have a special role and the largest impact.3 What I call New Flagship Universities have an increasingly wide array of missions that make them different than their predecessor institutions—including socioeconomic mobility, basic and applied research, public service and community engagement. And they play an increasingly vital role in regional and national economic development. Compared to private research universities, they offer a more diverse portfolio of academic programs, research, and forms of public and economic engagement.4 Part of the reason for the distinct role of leading public universities is scale; they are much larger in enrollment and in the number of academic programs, dominate in the production of STEM graduates, and in their volume of research output, including patents and licenses. Another distinction is their geographic distribution throughout major population areas, while elite private research-intensive universities are found in only a few states. And Flagship Universities have historical roots and a growing commitment to public service, including often very large “extension” programs that provide relevant research and training programs for farmers and business people throughout a state. California and other key states are major innovators and economic powerhouses because of a number of market positions. These include long-term investments in research universities, robust forms of federal R&D funding, the availability of venture capital, tax policies that promote private investment in university basic research, and a political culture that supported entrepreneurs and risk-taking. In essence, the US was the first to understand and pursue the nexus of science and economic policy. There is a vast scholarly literature on how universities should interact with society at large to promote economic development and social goods. It is also a significant policy area for government and intergovernmental agencies like the Organisation for 3

With the demise of many private research laboratories, our nation’s universities have become the primary sources of U.S. research, discovery, and innovation. The biotech industry originated almost entirely from research universities. Countless start-ups and patent grants in a number of industries have sprung from the research clusters that have formed, in conjunction with private counterparts, around the University of California, Berkeley; University of California, San Diego; University of Michigan; University of Texas at Austin; and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.7 Further, public research universities regularly engage with community and state governments, providing academic expertise, technical assistance, and critical education and workforce development. They are also major employers: in 2012–2013, public research universities employed over 1.1 million faculty and staff nationwide, and were among the top-five largest employers in twenty-four states. See the Academy of Science Lincoln Project: Public Research Universities: Why They Matter (2016). 4 For a description, see Douglass (2016).

84

J. A. Douglass

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),5 and pan-regional associations like the Association of Southeastern Asian Nations (ASEAN). My objective in this essay is to reflect on this work by economists, sociologists and others, and provide a way to discuss the contextual aspects that illustrate and highlight essential dynamics experienced in one of the most successful economies. In turn, this may provide a conceptual model for assessing the vitality and prospect for the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area. While globalization is reshaping our understanding of economic competitiveness, regional economic productivity, and the interplay of government, business and organizations like universities, and national and regional cultures, remain the primary sources of technological innovation and increased productivity. As noted by Barbara Ischinger and Jaana Puuka, while reflecting on numerous OECD studies on the role of universities in regional economic development, “despite the ‘death of distance,’ innovation continues to cluster around specific regions and urban centers that have skilled people, vibrant communities, and the infrastructure for innovation. The competitive advantage of regions that create the best conditions for growth and development is increasing, and the gaps between regions are growing.”6 The San Francisco Bay Area is perhaps the single most innovative economic hub, home to a host of technology based companies supported by a robust higher education system. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic creates a new environment that may, in the short- and possibly long-run, will alter the vibrancy of existing KBEA’s, and the complexity of building new regional economic hubs. As discussed in the following, talent mobility and social interaction and the networks they build are all key components of new growth ecosystem. These aspects of globalization are being altered. But one might assume that a return to a new normal will still mean that the KBEA model discussed here will remain salient. In addition, the contentious political environment in Hong Kong is also an important factor in influencing and shaping how the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area may further develop its own economic hub. As noted in the following, political support for R&D, and investment in universities, is important; so is the extent of civil liberties and open societies for the ability to attract and retain talent.

5

For example, between 2005 and 2012, the OECD has reviewed the role and impact of higher education in more than 30 cities and regions in more than 20 countries. The Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development have stretched over six continents, involved hundreds of universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) and embraced a diverse set of policy frameworks in education, science and technology, and territorial development. See the final report of the Programme on Innovation, Higher Education and Research for Development (IHERD) (2012). 6 Ischinger and Puukka (2009), May–June.

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

85

Robust KBEAs—Seven Contextual Variables Beginning in earnest in the mid-1800s, public universities in the United States were established and developed as agents of both economic and social progress, with charters that emphasized a three-part mission: Teaching, Research and Public Service. In much of the world, the concept of economic engagement, and more generally public service, is a relatively new and identified as a “third” mission—as if it was an additional and new part of the purpose of major universities. There is a tradition of engagement with the private sector within the disciplines of engineering and the agricultural sciences, but historically they are the exception. Most of the famous state Flagship Universities—Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Cornell, California, Washington and others—either were established or gained initial funding under the federal “Land Grant Act” of 1862. This watershed act provided allocations of federal owned land largely in the American West to each state to sell for the funding of regionally focused universities. The objective was to increase access to universities, and to have them serve local economic needs of a young nation. Universities that gained land, and hence a source of funds, were required to include programs in agriculture and mechanical arts (essentially civil and other forms of engineering training and research), but not at the expense of the liberal arts and classical subjects. To reinforce the notion of the American university as an agent of socioeconomic change, the governing boards of these public institutions had a majority of “lay members” (i.e., not associated directly with the academic community) that represented the broader society that the university was intended to serve, including business and farming interests. California was transformed by this important federal legislation. The subsequent establishment in 1868 of California’s then sole state university at Berkeley was a direct result of the Land Grant Act. Its curriculum and subsequent research and outreach efforts were significantly focused on interacting and supporting the state’s economic needs. Agriculture and mining were the largest economic sectors in the later part of the nineteenth century. From these beginnings emerged universities that gauged a significant portion of their purpose and success on interaction and support of both economic development and socioeconomic mobility. California has a number of unique characteristics and contextual factors that, as noted previously, shaped its historical and contemporary success as an agent of economic development. Figure 4.1 provides my outline of the seven variables for the most productive KBEAs. The following description provides a brief overview of each of these variables and how they influence or play a role in California. Universities—Autonomy/Governance; Internal Quality Assurance and Self Improvement; Academic; Culture Supportive of Economic Engagement. The levels of autonomy, the governance structure, and internal academic culture of research-intensive universities, play a major role in influencing their engagement with economic development and socioeconomic mobility. This includes a sufficient level of institutional autonomy to make decisions and form collaborations with private

86

J. A. Douglass

Fig. 4.1 Seven Key contextual variables for Knowledge Based Economic Areas (KBEA)

sector firms and with local government entities and NGOs. It also includes the need for an internal academic culture in which faculty and researchers value and are rewarded for pursuing research and collaborations that range from working with established firms, to supporting and participating in start-ups, and developing curricula that directly benefit regional labor needs. Universities in the United States, public and private non-profit, have common governance features that relate to their very earliest development as corporate entities, chartered by state governments that have authority over higher education institutions. In the U.S., there is no national equivalent to ministries responsible for higher education. The federal government primarily sets policy related to student financial aid (direct grants for low income students and loan programs for all qualified lower and middle class students), R&D funding through agencies such as the National Science Foundation, and regulatory controls related to these allocations and to national antidiscrimination policies. State governments charter all institutions and generally have provided management authority to universities via their governing boards, with expanding accountability schemes sometimes linked to university funding. As a result, public and private universities have governance structures that lend themselves to significant management capacity when compared to universities in many other parts of the world. This includes some form of a Governing Board, an Executive Leader (e.g., “president”) and a formal body of the faculty who share management responsibilities under a model of “shared governance,” with different traditions and levels of cooperation within different universities. Governing boards include members from the larger society that the university serves. They are sufficiently autonomous from national ministries, and government

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

87

in general, to set broad institutional policies and hire and fire their top university administrator. Depending on its legal authority and the process for selecting members, the board provides a crucial combination of public accountability and, at the same time, a buffer with respect to the occasional political vacillations of government officials and other sources of political pressure that may not benefit the university’s mission and public purposes. In the U.S., states differ with regard to the amount of independence and authority that public-university boards have. California is one of three states where its Flagship public university enjoy a large degree of state constitutional autonomy—meaning independence from legislative control. The other two are Michigan and Minnesota. If properly constituted in their membership and responsibilities, governing boards act as a conduit and forum for major policy decisions that balance the academic values necessary for the internal life of universities while responding to the external needs and multiple demands of stakeholders. Most major universities also have an affiliated “Foundation” or “Development” corporation with a board to solicit donations, gifts and funds that are managed outside of the legal framework and restrictions of the university itself. This provides a means to generate additional income for targeted projects, like buildings and scholarships, and sometimes to provide operating funds. But a foundation is very different from the larger policy and financial accountability role of an effective governing board that optimally would charter and regulate a university’s foundation. Governing boards retain ultimate responsibility and full authority to determine the mission of the institution within the constraints of state policies and government funding mandates. But they must do so with regard for the higher education needs of their states or regions, in a deliberative manner that includes the advice of the president (or equivalent title, like rector), who in turn should consult with the faculty and other constituents. To help navigate the proper balance in authority, the University of California defines the roles of administrative leaders and faculty in university management under a model of “shared governance” summarized in Fig. 4.2. Under this model, academic administrators and faculty have distinct and collaborative roles. • Academic administrators, generally, have the primary decision making authority in all issues related to the institution’s budget, and effective management of university operations that support academic activities. They act as the primary liaison with governing boards, government authorities, and other stakeholders. Executive leaders also provide a strategic vision for universities and ideas for new initiatives, yet always in a consultative manner with university faculty and other members of the academic community. • A representative body of the faculty (such as a “faculty senate”) has direct or shared authority regarding all academic activities of a university, including oversight of academic programs and curriculum, a strong advisory capacity to the university’s rector or president over faculty appointments, determination of admissions standards and practices where there is institutional discretion, and consultative rights for major budget decisions related to academic programs.

88

J. A. Douglass

Fig. 4.2 A model of shared governance

The University of California, a multi-campus system with ten campuses, provides an example of policies on shared governance that arguably are one reason for its status as one of the great university systems in the world. In addition, UC’s particular legal status as semi-autonomous from state and federal government control allowed the institution to develop strategies and processes for engaging with the private sector, and for allowing faculty and university research staff to create and enterprises, subject to appropriate controls set by the university itself. At the same time, it is important to note that the model (Fig. 4.2) is not typical of many of top private research universities in the United States—governance organization and behaviors vary greatly. Often, an organizational challenge for a university is to more clearly outline the roles of academic administrators and faculty, and students and governing boards or ministries. In many parts of the world, these roles are sometimes dictated by national laws or by ministerial policies that, arguably, limit the management capacity of universities. R&D Investment Patterns—Public and Private Funding. In the area of R&D investment, the US has three major market advantages relative to other economies. First, the high proportion of R&D investment by the private sector; second, the relatively high investment rate in basic research beginning in the early 1960s; and third, the fact that funding is dispersed among universities largely in a competitive, peer-reviewed process. Absolute levels of R&D expenditures are important indicators of a nation’s innovative capacity and are harbingers of future growth

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

89

and productivity. But equally important is the source, how the R&D is invested, and the geographic concentration of R&D activity. Since 1953, US R&D expenditures as a percentage of national GDP have ranged from a minimum of 1.4% to near peak of 2.8% in 196. In 2018, the ratio was 2.9%. In the 1960s, the majority of R&D investment was by the federal government. Since then, however, the private sector has become the majority R&D funder, mostly in the development side, and increasingly in basic research in areas such as biotechnology. Non-federally financed R&D, the majority of which is company-financed but also includes non-profit foundations, increased from 40% of all R&D in 1968 to nearly 70% in 2018.7 Research and development performed in the United States totaled $580 billion in 2018, with spending concentrated geographically in about ten states. As noted, the business sector continues to be the largest performer of U.S. R&D.8 Most of the private sector R&D investment occurs in only five states, reflecting their concentration on high tech industries and robust research intensive universities: California, Washington, Texas, Massachusetts, and Michigan, accounting for almost half the nation’s company-paid R&D. The top 10 states—adding New Jersey, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut—produced 70% of the R&D that U.S. companies financed. Pharmaceuticals and medicines, the largest R&D industry, accounted for 17% of the national total. The higher education sector is the second-largest performer of U.S. R&D. Universities and colleges performed $67.7 billion, or 14%, of U.S. R&D. Over the 20-year period 1993–2018, academia’s share in U.S. R&D ranged between 11 and 15% annually. More importantly, universities and colleges remain the primary providers of the nation’s basic research. Most of that funding is via a competitive review process that provides wide latitude for researchers to determine areas of science that are most promising. Relatively little funding is directed toward specific economic sectors, although there is increased funding lately for research related to climate change and mitigating the COVID and future pandemics. At the same time, it is important to note the high concentration of federal and private funding for university R&D in about 50 top institutions—and the importance of having highly competitive and quality universities in general for promoting regional innovation systems. As noted, the business sector is increasingly investing in and carrying out basic research, particularly in biotechnology. About 27% of all basic research is performed by the private sector in the United States. The federal government, through its national laboratories and engineering centers, and non-profit research centers also perform important basic research. Unlike other economic competitors, a substantial amount of university and other funding for basic research, the building block for long-term technological innovation, comes from the private sector.9 7

National Science Foundation (2020), January 8; Congressional Research Service (2021). “US Research and Development Funding and Performance: Fact Sheet.” January 24. 8 National Science Foundation (2020), January 8. 9 Ibid.

90

J. A. Douglass

Business Environment—Concentration of Knowledge Based Businesses; Openness to Risk Taking; Access to Venture Capital. Venture capital is a primary source of funding for high-tech (HT) businesses. The US remains the single largest source of venture capital, representing a major market advantage unmatched by any other major developed nation. The lack of an equity investment culture, complexities related to intellectual property and legal processes for investing in new businesses, and market volatility, are factors that hinder the development of early-stage financing in many OECD countries. In 2014, total U.S. venture capital investment hit $48.3 billion. The number of individual venture capital investments, or deals, were 4,356 deals, indicating the growth of deal size and the presence of a number of “megadeals”—many in California.10 More recently, in the first six months of 2019, U.S. venture capital funding climbed to $55 billion. Of that total, the San Francisco Bay Area alone attracted nearly $6.4 billion, while Silicon Valley brought in more than $2.9 billion and the Los Angeles/Orange County region received nearly $1.9 billion. Internet companies profited most from the surge in VC funding, drawing a total of $22.6 billion in the first half of 2019. Healthcare and Mobile & Telecommunication startups were the other main beneficiaries, receiving $8.8 and $5.9 billion in venture capital, respectively.11 The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic may lower venture capital investment going into 2022. Yet there are some indicators that tech companies and start-ups will benefit from the pandemic, particularly the biotech industry that quickly developed mRNA vaccines based largely on publicly funded basic research. In the United States, a continuum of capital providers, including angel investors and public and private venture funds, helps diversify risk and ensures a steady flow of quality deals. These networks—together with the use of staged financing instruments linked to performance, provision of technical and managerial support, and easy exits on secondary stock markets—have contributed to the survival and growth of portfolio firms. While the US remains a major source of high tech innovation and job growth, among the various states there are differences in the geographic dispersion of mature KBEAs, particularly in the generation of new high tech businesses and centers of venture capital. Similar to the overall rates of R&D investment, California has the largest concentration of venture capital and venture deals; some 56% of all US venture capital investment was in California, mostly occurring in the San Francisco/Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The top five states in venture capital investments represent 75% of all investments: California, followed by Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania. But it is also important to note that globally venture capital investment is increasingly dramatically—an indicator of the increasing competitiveness of economies world-wide from about $151 billion in 2015 to $308 billion in 2018, with the share going to U.S. startups declining from 53 to 46%. The US remains the biggest player in this form of investment, but other national economies in Europe and Asia are 10 11

Data from National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Richter (2019), July 17.

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

91

changing the map of investment and future growth in technology driven sectors of the economy.12 Within the US, a study indicates that larger firms with over 1,000 employees are the most likely to collaborate with universities and other public research institutes (nonprofits). Further, most if not all of these firms are already engaged in R&D activity, sometimes via contracting research activity, and have therefore successfully built a capacity to absorb and use public-generated research.13 Another study indicates that university-based start-ups are largely concentrated in states with the largest economies and with the largest levels of venture capital.14 These patterns of R&D activity all point to the importance of a vibrant metropolitan environment for providing the ecosystem for the most productive KBEAs. Legal Environment—Intellectual Property Laws; Tax Laws that Promote R&D; Tax Laws for Gifts/Funding of Universities; Foreign Investment Laws. While there is a long history of UC faculty involvement in the development of agriculture (wine, citrus, major vegetable crops) and high-technology based sectors (computing, communications, biotech), a factor that enhanced this activity is the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act. This federal legislation changed the landscape of intellectual property law. Universities gained ownership rights for inventions and resulting patents funded through federally funded research—as noted, the primary source of basic research funding which is performed largely in research universities. In part because it is one of the most prolific generators of intellectual property, the US created a relatively elaborate and generally protective set of laws that, in turn, have influenced economic development. Two major events help to decipher the proliferation of intellectual property and its influence on the American market. First, as noted, the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 opened the doors for universities and, in turn their faculty and researchers, to own patents on inventions developed through federally funded research and to issue licenses on them. Prior to 1980, patents and licenses generated by federally financed research remained, with few exceptions, under the ownership of the government in Washington—the result of a Cold War approach to intellectual property that focused much of the federal R&D investment on defense related technologies. The Bayh-Dole Act is credited with providing an important market force for encouraging universities, and their faculty and graduate students, to be more entrepreneurial—an intellectual property model later replicated by other national governments, beginning with the UK during the Thatcher administration. BayhDole generated a revised worldview for both the university and business sectors by encouraging tech-transfer, and arguably an exaggerated sense of potential profits for researchers through the return of portions of royalties to inventors. This national initiative, along with the funding of new federally funded university-business centers 12

National Venture Capital Association (2020). Fontana et al. (2005). 14 Chukumba and Jensen (2005). 13

92

J. A. Douglass

in engineering, had another effect: State governments, and to a lesser extent municipal governments, looked for new ways to harness their universities to support and grow their tech-based businesses and to compete for growing federal funding. Another major shift in intellectual property laws was shaped by the legal system, and specifically the emergence via the courts of a more liberal determination of what could be a patentable discovery or idea. Remarkable discoveries in the life sciences, fed in part by long-term investments in basic research, created unique requests for patents and licenses. In 1980, the same year the Bayh-Dole Act was passed, the US Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision providing an extremely broad definition of “patentable material,” including the patenting of organisms, molecules, and research techniques related to new biotechnology fields.15 Patenting by academic institutions in the U.S. increased markedly over the last two decades. The number of U.S. university patents granted by US Patent Office increase rapidly, more than doubling between 2008 and 2016, reaching more than 6,600 in 2016. The top 200 R&D-performing higher education institutions dominate among universities and university systems receiving patents, with some 98% of the total patents granted to these. Among these institutions, 19 accounted for more than 50% of all patents granted to the top 200 (some of these were multi-campus systems, like the University of California and the University of Texas). The University of California system alone received some 11% of all U.S. patents granted to universities, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with 4.2%. Biotechnology patents accounted for the largest share (25%) of university patents.16 One of the most important recent university patents was for CRISPR-Cas9, a gene editing technology invented at UC Berkeley. Research on innovation systems indicates that the number of patents and licenses may be of less importance than the increased circulation of faculty and researchers, including graduate students, between the academy and the private sector. Being open to so-called “brain circulation” means having policies and a culture that promotes cross-fertilization. Universities now allow faculty to engage with the private sector, sometimes taking leaves of absence and then returning to their teaching duties. The networking and free flow of labor and, to some degree, ideas is one of the major characteristics of robust KBEA’s—feeding and sustaining these ecosystems.17 Other countries implemented policies similar to the Bayh-Dole Act by the early 2000s, giving their academic institutions (rather than inventors or the government) ownership of patents resulting from government-funded research. To facilitate the conversion of new knowledge produced in their laboratories to patent-protected public knowledge that potentially can be licensed by others or form the basis for a startup firm, many U.S. research institutions established technology transfer offices, research parks, and incubators.

15

Mowery et al. (2004); see also Kenney and Mowery (2014). National Science Foundation (2018). 17 Mowery et al. (2004). Op cited. 16

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

93

Shifting the ownership rules for government funded intellectual property clearly encouraged greater investment by capital markets and resulted in research collaborations in the US to a degree not yet fully replicated in similar developed economies. Furthermore, actual ownership of technology is necessary if corporations are to make large investments, such as for clinical trials and Food and Drug Administration approval, in order to bring the inventions to market. One historical US advantage in shaping investment patterns and promoting risktaking relates to tax policy at the federal, state, and, increasingly, local level as well. The US long engaged in using taxation not simply to generate revenue, but to shape economic behavior—a characteristic relatively new to many other economies. For example, bankruptcy laws in the US are the most liberal of any major developed economy, reflecting a political culture that essentially promotes entrepreneurship, recognizes the high rate of failure among all types of businesses, and spreads the risk so that a business failure does not mean permanent ruin. The U.S. tax system includes “tax credits,” encouraging businesses to invest in technology and increasingly in R&D (see Fig. 4.3). This in part accounts for the high rates of private investment in R&D (about 70% of all US R&D expenditures).

The federal Research and Development Tax Credit (“R&D tax credit”) is a business tax credit for qualified research expenses that can be deducted from overall corporate income taxes. This includes: Qualified research expenses include: certain labor and wage costs for performing research activities “in-house;” certain supplies used in conducting research; and a percentage of costs associated with “contract research expenses.” The credit only applies to research performed in the United States. The traditional R&D tax credit provides a 20 percent credit for qualified research expenses that exceed the taxpayer’s base amount (determined by reference to the taxpayer’s research expenses during the mid 1980s and the taxpayer’s recent gross receipts). In lieu of the traditional credit, taxpayers may elect to claim the Alternative Simplified Credit (ASC). The ASC provides a 14 percent credit for qualified research in excess of 50 percent of a company’s prior three-year average qualified research expenses. Under certain circumstances, businesses can also claim a credit if they fund qualified research at another organization such as a university or other research organizations. In such instances, a business can claim only 65 percent or 75 percent (as compared to 100 percent for in-house R&D expenditures) of qualifying expenditures toward the tax credit. The 75 percent rate applies only to qualified research organizations (such as universities or research consortiums), which are tax-exempt entities organized primarily to conduct scientific research and which are Fig. 4.3 US R&D tax credits (Source American Association of Universities)

94

J. A. Douglass

An important shift to further encourage private investment occurred around the time of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, with the establishment of the Research and Experimentation (R&E) tax credit as part of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. It has since been extended and modified several times and was renewed by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. From 1990 to 1996, companies claimed between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion in R&E credits annually; since then, annual R&E credits have exceeded $9 billion.18 Historically, state and local taxation systems varied significantly in the US, including a sales tax in some states, or an income tax model like the federal system, or both.19 Few provided significant tax credits or other incentives for R&D investment. But over the past three decades, states and local government have become much more engaged in shaping tax policy to attract desirable businesses, including high technology enterprises, and to generate investment in both university and business-based research. Workforce—High-Quality/Professional; Mobility; Access to Global Labor Pool; Pathways to Citizenship. The US reaped tremendous advantages by its early commitment to mass higher education. Over most of the last century, more Americans went to college and graduated, with many entering graduate programs, than was the case for citizens of any other nation in the world. Adding to the nation’s supply of talent is a relatively open-market approach to attracting academics and researchers. In the 1930s, the US provided a haven for preeminent scientists escaping Nazi Germany and World War II. The emergence of a large network of high-quality universities that would hire foreign nationals as professors and researchers contrasted sharply with many if not most nations where university faculty held or hold civil service positions, and in which national governments limited the hiring of non-native talent. Particularly after World War II, and beginning in earnest during the 1960s, the presence of foreign students in US universities grew dramatically, supported sometimes by their national governments, and increasingly by offers of student financial aid by American universities in graduate programs such as engineering where, today, foreign nationals are often more than 50% of the total students in any given program. In previous decades, students who came to the US for both undergraduate and graduate programs largely stayed in the US and entered the job market. Their presence dramatically influenced technological innovation. For example, one study indicates that nearly one-third of all the successful start-ups in Silicon Valley were started by foreign nationals, most of who gained their training in American universities. Foreign nationals from Asia became the largest single source of talent coming to the US for education, largely in graduate programs in science and engineering. Bolstered by Chinese national government initiatives, students from China became the largest single source of foreign students in the US beginning in the early 1990s. The overall growth in all foreign nationals entering US graduate degree programs in that period also reflected a shortfall in the training of “native” US students in 18 19

National Science Foundation (2018). Op cited. Moris (2005), July.

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

95

STEM fields, and the push by high technology economic sectors to get the talent they needed via US universities, and by successfully advocating more liberal visa policies for highly educated immigrants. This pattern of attracting and then retaining talent is beginning to erode for two general reasons. First, the US and other developed economies with mature higher education systems are finding that a growing number of foreign nationals educated in science and engineering fields, and professionals that have long contributed to science and technology innovation and businesses, are returning to their native economies as they mature, buttressed by national policies to attract top scientific talent. Second, the overall market for higher education, one of the primary means of attracting talent, is both growing and shifting with further development of university systems in the EU and elsewhere. The United States has enjoyed a distinct but decreasing advantage in the supply of human capital for research and other work involving science and engineering. In absolute numbers, until recently the United States had the largest population of science and engineering researchers, but China (which almost tripled its number since the mid-1990s) and other parts of the world, in particular Northern Europe, has recently surpassed the US. Globally, the number of international students in national higher education systems (defined as those students with citizenship or residency in another country) grew from around 1.8 million in 2000, to over 4 million in 2014, and 5.3 million in 2019—although there is a worldwide dip in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over that period, most EU nations have either retained or expanded their market share of international students; countries such as Australia and New Zealand also grew in their market share. Meanwhile, even in the midst of a significant expansion in the number of students seeking higher education outside of their home countries, the share of international students attending US universities and colleges has declined marginally. The US does retain a strong international draw at the graduate level, and particularly in engineering, the sciences, and business management. Before the COVID pandemic, a high percentage of Chinese students came to the US. At that time, nearly 30% of all international Chinese students enroll in a US university or college. And some 24% of all international doctoral-level students in the US are foreign nationals. But as an indicator of shifts in the global talent pool, there is now an even a higher percentage in the EU and in Australia which, combined, draws 28% of the global pool of doctoral students. There is then the question of the relative quality of the international student pool, and the quality and reputation of the graduate programs they enroll in—all rather difficult factors to evaluate. The US remains a world leader in the prestige and, arguably, the quality of its advanced graduate programs. Yet there is growing evidence that students throughout the world no longer see the US as the primary place to study; that in some form this correlates with perceived quality and prestige in the EU and elsewhere; and, further, that the trajectory of growth in international students may mean a continued decline in the US market share of international students.

96

J. A. Douglass

Attracting talent from abroad is an important component of the US’s high technology advantage. Educating a more robust native population should be an equally, if not more, important goal. A factor that will influence the US’s market position, and the general socioeconomic health of the nation, is the relative decline in higher education attainment rates of Americans when compared to other developed economies. This phenomenon relates to a decline in the quality of pre-college education in the US, especially in the public sector, and declining public investment in higher education. Quality of Life—Metropolitan Advantage; Housing and Transportation; Education; Pollution; Crime. A growing body of research suggests that quality of life (QOL) is becoming an increasingly important consideration in modern business location decisions, particularly for high-tech firms that are less tied to traditional location factors such as transportation costs, proximity to raw materials, and cheap labor. A recent study on new business formations notes that, “Quality-of-life factors appear to be able to explain roughly a third of new-business formations” in the US in metropolitan areas where the bulk of business activities occurs. QOL is also an important variable for productive research-intensive universities and for supporting KBEAs. Attracting and retaining talented people is highly dependent on an environment that promotes creativity, excellence and entrepreneurship, including affordable housing, cultural amenities, convenient transportation, health care, good quality schools, job opportunities for spouses/partners, low pollution, and safe neighborhoods and city streets. Add to these other variables related to open societies: freedom of speech and racial tolerance, gender equality and non-discriminatory practices related to sexual preferences. A faculty recruitment study at Harvard of more than 2,000 doctoral students and almost 700 first- and-second-year faculty members at a sample of top American universities asked respondents to rank the importance of such factors as salary, location, chances of tenure, department quality, and institutional prestige when weighing different job offers. Both groups ranked geographic location and quality of life as their first priority, followed by the “work balance” between teaching and research. Salary and institutional prestige where ranked toward the bottom of the list. The tenure factor was ranked somewhere in the middle. Collaborative efforts of regional or city governments, universities and the private sector have led to a variety of strategies that link many of the KBEAs variables noted with the objective of attracting talent. These include: • • • •

Finding and explaining a region’s unique competitive niche. Programs for developing and assisting high-growth entrepreneurs. Creating clusters in the region around core business niches. Improving and leveraging local amenities—parks, recreational facilities, social services etc. • Investing in people, community leaders and local workforce alike, including lifelong learning. • Enriching the region’s supply of equity capital. The public and private sectors can play very different and important roles.

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

97

• Tapping technologies suited to the region. In many regions, they might include: production agriculture that includes renewable energy and new bio-based materials from crop plants; advanced manufacturing, and high-skill services based on information technologies that are not location dependent. • Investing in twenty-first century infrastructure. This includes quality-of-life infrastructure such as community centers, education and distance education options, and well- designed public and recreation areas as well as telecommunications infrastructure, for example. • Reinventing regional governance to make decisions as a region instead of as independent jurisdictions. Universities have a special responsibility to extend their expertise to helping improve the QOL in the regional area in which they operate—on their own, or in collaboration with other higher education institutions, local government and business. Political Environment—Political Leadership; University Funding (Operational and Capital); Leveraging Federal Funding. Among the general public, and most importantly among major political leaders in the US, the tenets of new growth theory, as noted previously, are growing in influence. With declines in older manufacturing and consumer goods industries, high technology and service industries are widely viewed as the sources of near- and long-term economic competitiveness. This worldview is, of course, shared by many other developed economies, such as the EU. The difference is that the US has a longer history of essentially believing that HT innovation and economic activity will, in some form, be the crux of its future economy, and this belief influences R&D investment rates. There is abundant empirical evidence of the central importance of high tech innovation, including highly productive regional economic areas such as Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area for information technology and biotechnology, San Diego in communication technologies (like Qualcomm), and Boston for biotechnology. But there also emerged a rhetoric influenced by these success stories, including the desire to replicate in some form a seemingly universal formulas for success, and fueled by an optimistic enthusiasm and sense of competition that often drives policymaking. The bright light of a technology and knowledge based economy is the focus of large scale public investment. The major change in the US, with similar trends in other parts of the world, is the movement of policymaking and public investment intended to promote high tech innovation and encourage university-business collaboration from national policymaking to the regional (or state) and local levels. State governments have increasingly becoming active promoters of generating and supporting KBEAs. Yet the source of public R&D funding traditionally been the purview of federal (national) governments. Hence, many state and local initiatives intended to build university-business collaborations two decades ago, for example, were in large part pursued to capture federal funds. This motivation remains, but increasingly states are simply investing their own money in basic research efforts in areas such as stem cells and nanotechnologies.

98

J. A. Douglass

Political interest, enthusiasm, and the sense of political competition—to copy the practices of competitor states or local regions, or to beat them to new policy initiatives—are prerequisites to building KBEAs. Arguably, although with many nuances, the US has a high political interest in and desire to promote KBEAs and technological innovation.

Assessing California’s Success Flagship Universities (leading national research intensive universities) play an essential role in KBEAs. As noted, this includes a political and legal environment that supports innovation, quality of life factors key for attracting and retaining talent, a conducive business environment including sources of venture capital, access to and nurturing of a quality workforce, robust sources of R&D Funding for both academic and applied research, and finally, but not least, productive universities who value economic engagement and that actively seek interaction with the private sector. The ability of businesses to innovate is increasingly tied to acquiring knowledge from outside sources, including universities. Businesses generally prefer engagement with local or regional universities who have intimate, local knowledge of the socioeconomic, cultural, and legal environments in which they operate.20 All of these components of a robust regional innovation system exist in various forms within California. In a highly interactive and iterative process of shaping and being shaped by these KBEAs variables, the University of California has long held a pivotal place within California’s growing and diverse economy. With ten campuses, five health centers, and other facilities located throughout the state, the University of California is a significant actor in California’s economy and in its social and cultural life. With expenditures of over $29 billion in 2018, much of that in the form of salaries, wages and benefits, UC annually generates more than $46 billion in economic activity in California, and approximately $14 dollars in economic output for every dollar of taxpayer money invested by the state. The following summarizes some of the key ways UC influences and shapes the California economy based on 2018 fiscal year data. • Geographic Presence and Public Service—One of the key features of California’s pioneering public higher education system is a conscious effort to have campuses and services distributed throughout the state, and correlating with population centers and regional economic needs. • Employment—UC is a major employer in California, with over 190,000 faculty, researchers, staff, and students employed at 10 campuses, five health centers, and other facilities throughout the state, making UC the third-largest employer in the state. UC employees are broadly distributed throughout the state with about 74%

20

Rossi and Geuna (2015). Op cited.

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

99

associated with the nine general campuses, 23% at the five health centers, and 3% at other UC facilities. • Graduates and Post-Graduate Employment—UC has more than 150 academic disciplines and over 600 graduate degree programs. At the undergraduate level, the university awards nearly one-third of California’s bachelor’s degrees. Across disciplines, undergraduate degree recipients tend to double their earnings between two and ten years after graduation. At the graduate level, UC confers more doctoral degrees per tenured/tenure-track faculty than the average at public American Association of Universities (AAU) peers. More than 25,000 graduates of UC’s academic Ph.D. and master’s programs (in fields other than engineering/computer science) have entered the California workforce since 2000. • Research Impact—UC faculty and researchers have received nearly 9% of all academic research and development grants coming from Washington and reported more than 1,700 new inventions in 2018. UC has more than 12,500 active U.S. patents from its inventions—more than any other university in the country— that have generated $21.1 billion in revenue and generated over 18,000 jobs in California alone. UC startups are independently operating companies that formed to commercialize a UC technology. The vast majority (over 85%) of these startups were founded in California. In a globalizing world where businesses investment and activity are increasingly competitive, universities can also play an essential role as a KBEA anchor—a physical presence that generates new knowledge and talent not transportable to another region, another nation. The University of California plays this anchor role in California’s innovation system, along with other major research universities, including Stanford, Caltech and the University of Southern California. What are the main lessons from California’s experience that might be relevant to other parts of the world, and specifically focused on UC’s role in California’s innovation economy? The following outlines six major observations. • University Autonomy and Management Capacity As noted previously, early in its development as the Flagship University for the state of California, UC gained a high level of institutional autonomy granted to its Board of Regents, including a prominent role for faculty in institutional management. This allowed the university to manage financial and capital (buildings and land) resources, and, most importantly, to shape its academic programs, admissions standards, faculty advancement policies, and the role of university administrators, all relatively free of government interference and influence. At the same time, with such autonomy came a responsibility to insure that the university was responsive to political, cultural, social, and economic needs of the people and the state that gives the institution life and purpose. Higher levels of institutional autonomy, along with role of the Board of Regents, provide a balanced governance structure that allowed the university to be accountable to the public, yet also relatively free from political vacillations and the constant, and growing and sometime contradictory, demands of stakeholders.

100

J. A. Douglass

In turn, UC’s autonomy is a precondition for building a significant level of management capacity, essentially empowering a university to make strategic choices in a deliberate manner, a desire for institutional self-improvement, evidence based management. At the same time, it is important to note that UC is a coherent network of ten university campuses under a single governing board with substantial management capacity under its “One University” model. It is also part of a larger pioneering state system of higher education with different missions for different types of institutions that serve the higher education needs of California. In contrast, almost all national public universities throughout the world are independent entities, in competition with each other for students, for research funding, and are not conceived as part of larger systems. • Internal Academic Culture That Values Economic Engagement A sufficient level of autonomy, and an appropriate management capacity also provided the required environment for UC to build a performance-based academic culture that focuses on faculty productivity. This includes regular campus peer review of faculty performance and clear policies regarding criteria that reflects the larger mission and goals of an institution. The quality, expectations, and productivity of faculty in carrying out their duties, built around peer review and with an emphasis on innovation and creativity, is one of the most important features of leading universities. This includes placing sufficient value on economic engagement and public service in the hiring and advancement of faculty. Universities need to include policies that provide time and resources to engage with businesses, local and regional governments and public agencies and non-profits. Universities also need to seek organizational changes and emphases in faculty hiring that keep them at the forefront of research, and that may eventually influence technological and other sectors of the economy. For example, both the San Francisco and San Diego campuses fortuitously undertook biology research on complex and human-scale organisms at the critical point in time when that field was rapidly blossoming due to new research capabilities and advancements in biological knowledge. The UC San Francisco approach of stressing teamwork among outstanding researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds was particularly effective. • Robust Sources of External and Competitively Funded R&D The University of California, and specifically its faculty and researchers, have long operated successfully in a competitive environment for securing extramural research grants. Most research funding has come from the federal government that understands its crucial role in promoting both basic and applied research, and its fundamental role in shaping innovation and economic growth. Another important aspect of California’s innovation system, and that of the United States, is that most research funding is not directed to a specific outcome. Through the process of competitive peer review and funding for general areas of research, researchers themselves shape the research agenda. Universities play the key role in

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

101

fundamental (or blue-sky) research in which the value and future use is not always clear. Further, a balanced research investment portfolio insures research in all the disciplines and encourages research that falls between disciplines and/or brings several needed disciplines together. Research income, from public and private sources, is also one part of a larger funding model for research universities. UC has benefited from overhead rates that recognize the larger costs of its research activities, including administrative staff support and capital costs. Universities need to cover the real costs of grant-generated research, integrate these activities where appropriate into its teaching and public service roles, and generate resources for future investment in promising research and economic engagement initiatives. UC has worked out a financial structure with the State of California whereby about half of the recovered overhead that is made available by the federal government is passed on to the university and has become an essential and flexible source for major unanticipated expenses such as financial-support packages for faculty recruitment and retention. • Universities and Technology Transfer Universities need to develop policies and mechanisms to encourage interaction and collaborations with businesses and public agencies and to move inventions stemming from faculty research into commercial use. This includes carefully establishing the “rules of engagement” with businesses in which the university outlines conflict-ofinterest and conflict-of-commitment policies and appropriate expectations between the academic community and the private sector. Over time and with substantial experience, the University of California has developed its own “rules of engagement,” administrative support offices and policies to link faculty expertise and knowledge generation with regional businesses and local governments, and has participated in formal and informal interactions with stakeholders—including business-university forums and industry specific university centers or institutes that encourage the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and people. As the technology transfer operations of the university increased and as experience was gained over the years, the university moved toward more active marketing of technology and decentralization that placed technology-transfer operations closer to the faculty inventors. • A Supportive Political and Business Environment An essential component of California’s innovation system, and that of any KBEAs, is the interest and support of lawmakers, business interests, and more generally the public on the multiple roles universities play in socioeconomic mobility and economic growth. The development of the San Diego/La Jolla area into science-based industry and independent research organizations surrounding the UC San Diego campus is a strong example of how important these factors are. There is significant complexity to promoting a positive environment for universities to interact and support local, regional, and national economies. Political support is in part based on the performance, real and perceived, of universities in meeting

102

J. A. Douglass

a larger set of institutional responsibilities: from socioeconomic mobility, to generating talent for local labor markets and societal leaders, and research that both furthers knowledge and provides possible utility, including start-ups. The business environment is part of the political environment and, as we have discussed in this chapter, includes a broad range of variables: including a society supportive of risk-taking, perception regarding the interest and flexibility of a university to engage with the private sector, to tax and land-use policies that encourage private sector investment in university research, and the availability of venture capital. • University Accountability Developing and sustaining a vibrant KBEAs, and a positive and strategic relationship with local communities and the private sector, takes time and effort. The University of California has a long history of significantly shaping California’s economy. But there is always the question of what UC has done for the state, and the nation, lately. Universities need to actively report on their overall economic and social impact, on their collaborations and influence on specific business sectors, and seek avenues to disseminate and help explain their role in society. Data on the University of California’s economic impact is published in an annual UC generated “accountability reports”21 along with occasional “economic impact reports” generated by third parties. These activities provide formal and transparent sources of information on a wide variety of UC activities and comparative performance. Internationally, most accountability standards have been developed by ministries and are sometimes used for resource allocation. But universities need to creatively seek their own internally generated processes for setting performance standards, including their economic impact and the strength of their relationship with the private sector, and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses in these activities.

The Next Frontier for Innovation Ecosystems? Having outlined some of the elements that have proved to be important to California, with a particularly large role for the state’s public Flagship University, the University of California, what lessons does this provide for other parts of the world? The particular dynamics of productive KBEA eco-systems, and the interplay of public and private research-intensive universities in the U.S. (about 115 according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education) and in California (only about 13, with ten being UC campuses), are not necessarily directly replicable.22 In the UK, in Canada, in France, and in China, KBEAs exist or are emerging with a different alignment of the Seven Contextual Variables discussed previously, and within their own cultural and evolving norms. The history and contemporary 21 22

See the 2019 University of California Accountability Report. See the 2018 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

103

relationship between universities and their regional private sectors very significantly, faculty culture might be less entrepreneurial, universities may face significant legal and transactional barriers; there are also the demands of ministries, and different funding mechanisms for R&D. When compared to other parts of the world, another big difference is the mix of higher education institutions, and the concentration (or lack thereof) of national academic research activity and the intensity of engagement with local, regional, and the national economy in a few or many universities. In the US, the 115 universities in the Carnegie Classification of doctoral granting, research-intensive institutions conduct the vast majority of academic R&D—over 80%. In much of the world, demands for equitable distribution of research funds have spread funding among many institutions, all claiming to be research-intensive universities. But generally, this formula has not been as productive—hence a global movement by governments to seek greater mission differentiation among its growing number of higher education institutions and to focus research funding on fewer institutions. Good quality research-intensive universities are expensive. In the US, and in California, it is important to note the role of less researchintensive universities (some doctoral granting universities and 741 master’s granting universities and colleges) in educating undergraduate and graduates, and in producing new knowledge. For example, while Berkeley and Stanford’s engineering programs produce significant numbers of graduates who are then employed in Silicon Valley firms, San Jose State (a part of the California State University system without doctoral programs with a few rare exceptions) is actually the largest producer of subsequently employed engineering graduates in the region. In much of the world, universities strive for research-intensive status; within the US there is a history of mission differentiation, where many universities attempt to excel in their area of responsibility within a larger higher education system. Hence, San Jose State, and other parts of the CSU system, focus more on teaching and educating for the professions than on producing researchers. Deciphering the characteristics, dynamics, strengths, weaknesses, and longevity, of different KBEAs, and the particular role of universities that take on the New Flagship University role that I outline in a recent book,23 can help in the process of both national and regional economic development. Again, while noting the different cultural, political, and economic conditions in various parts of the world, there is a clear trend toward policy convergence. In a globalizing world, we are all looking over our shoulders for new ideas, patterns of success, and paths for future economic growth. Finally, this brief analysis has not attempted to outline the many conundrums and difficulties of the interplay between universities, the private sector, and governments—what some have called a triple helix interrelationship now deemed essential for the “Knowledge Society.”24 How is the close association with the private sector, which focuses on proprietary ownership of knowledge, influencing the behaviors 23 24

Douglass (2016). Op cited. Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (1997); see also Clark (2001).

104

J. A. Douglass

of researchers and universities who have public missions? What are the costs and benefits of universities becoming more entrepreneurial, often in search of funding within the context of declining public investment? These are among a myriad of important questions that are being vigorously debated, often described as a process of privatizing an important and scarce public good. In addition, as noted previously, there is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to consider. Talent mobility has been significantly reduced worldwide, with more restrictive visa policies and talent mobility perhaps permanently shifted. How will it influence the vibrancy of KBEA in the San Francisco Bay Area which is highly dependent on attracting talent internationally? Or in Shanghai, or Hong Kong? Some altered world for universities will emerge in the post-COVID era, and my sense is that the seven variables outlined in this chapter will remain salient.25 The future of the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area economic hub, and its vibrancy, relates to some extent on the future of Hong Kong’s ability to operate under the promised One China, Two Systems policy. In a country so vast as China, research universities can operate in a seemingly separate world, generating talent from within, enforcing ever expanding sedition laws, and able to fund nationally venture investment. They can be strong utilitarian universities. But for Hong Kong there is the danger of talent flight, growing isolation from the world, and limiting the dynamics of the most productive universities that relay on a broad definition of academic freedom and the open exchange of ideas. With these thoughts in mind, activities of universities of today, as well as that of the private sector, government, and more generally the workings of society, continue to become more complex and intertwined. There remains a political consensus and faith in the ideals of New Growth Theory, even if arguably this model of regional and national economic development is romanticized, sometimes removed, for instance, from the realities of economic and educational inequality and, as noted, political winds. This consensus on the need for innovation and the essential role of universities promises new policy initiatives, new relationships and funding, not only to create KBEAs, but to sustain them. As in the rise and decline of great industrial sectors, like steel in the American upper mid-west, will we see similar economic cycles related to KBEAs? The rise and fall of Nokia in Helsinki, and Blackberry in Waterloo, Canada, seem to indicate the importance of a diversified regional investment in knowledge production and talent, even in the midst of a high successful specific technology— easier said than done. The next frontier in research on innovation systems seems to be how to sustain investment and innovation, and retaining the robust dynamics of productive KBEAs.

25

See Douglass (2021, forthcoming).

4 Universities and New Growth Regional …

105

References Academy of Science Lincoln Project. (2016). Public research universities: Why they matter. Acemoglu, D. (2009). Endogenous technological change. In Introduction to modern economic growth (pp. 411–533). Princeton University Press. Chukumba, C., & Jensen, R. (2005). University invention, entrepreneurship, and start-ups. National Bureau of Economic Research, Tech-Based Economic Development Research Center. Clark, B. R. (2001). Creating entrepreneurial universities: Organizational pathways of transformation. Emerald Group. Congressional Research Service. (2021, October 4). US research and development funding and performance: Fact sheet. Cortright, J. (2001). New growth theory, technology and learning. Reviews of Economic Development Literature and Practice. US Economic Development Administration. Douglass, J. A. (2016). The new flagship university: Changing the paradigm from global ranking to national relevancy. Palgrave Macmillan. Douglass, J. A. (2021). Neo-nationalism and universities. Johns Hopkins University Press. Etzkowitz, H., & Leydesdorff, L. (1997). Universities and the global knowledge economy: A triple Helix of university-industry-government relations. Pinter. Fontana, R., Aldo, G., & Mirrell, M. (2005). Factors affecting university-industry R&D collaboration: The importance of screening and signaling. Research Centre in Economics and Management. Ischinger, B., & Puukka, J. (2009). Universities for cities and regions: Lessons from the OECD reviews. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. Kenney, M., & Mowery, D. C. (Eds.). (2014). Public universities and regional growth: Insights from the University of California. Stanford Business Books, Stanford University Press. Moris, F. (2005). The U.S. research and experimentation tax credit in the 1990s. National Science Foundation, InfoBrief 05-316. Mowery, D. C., Richard, R. N., Bhaven, N. S., & Arvids, A. Z. (2004). Ivory tower and universityindustry technological transfer before and after the Bayh-Dole act. Stanford University Press. National Science Foundation. (2018). Science and engineering indicators. National Science Foundation. (2020). National patterns of R&D resources: 2017–18, data update. NSF 20-307. National Venture Capital Association. (2020). NVCA yearbook. Programme on Innovation, Higher Education and Research for Development (IHERD). (2012). Research universities: Networking the knowledge economy. Seminar co-hosted by OECD/Project IHERD, Sida/Sweden and Boston College, USA. Richter, F. (2019). U.S. venture capital funding reaches Dot-Com era level. Statista. Romer, P. M. (1994). The origins of endogenous growth. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(1), 3–22. Rossi, F., & Geuna, A. (2015). How does academic research really benefit business. Elgar.

Part II

Development of the Greater Bay Area in China: Opportunity and Challenge

Chapter 5

Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes on Higher Education Cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau: Analysis Based on 65 Related Policy Texts Qin Liang Abstract With the advancement of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area strategy, the trend of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao has received increasing attention from the practical world and theoretical circles, but the question lies in how to examine the development and change in such cooperation from the perspective of policy changes. It is a prerequisite for futureoriented policy improvement and cooperation. This article uses higher education cooperation as the research unit and policy changes as the research dimension. It analyses the content of 65 related policy texts involving higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao since 1997. It presents the general trend and specific characteristics of policy changes on higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau. Research shows that the overall policy changes in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation are consistent with the national strategic development of open development, coordinated development and innovative development. From the perspective of the specific characteristics of policy changes through the lens of discourse evolution, the role objectives of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies have evolved from secondary to important, the content of the topics evolved from monistic to multiple, and the guaranteed tools evolved from simple to complex. Policy changes in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation are affected by economic and social environmental factors and also by other factors such as stakeholders. Keywords Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau · Higher education cooperation · Policy changes · Content analysis

Q. Liang (B) South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. H. Mok (ed.), Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6_5

109

110

Q. Liang

Introduction In February 2019, the Party Central Committee and the State Council jointly issued the ‘Outline of Planning for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’. The words ‘international education heights’ and ‘innovation-driven’ reflected the urgent requirements for higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong KongMacau. Actually, the cooperation of higher education in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao is not a new issue but a process of gradual development. As early as the Anti-Japanese War, intellectuals such as Chen Huanzhang, Zhong Luzhai and Zeng Youhao went to Hong Kong to set up higher education schools (Lin & Weng, 2009). As of November 2017, Hong Kong’s official statistics show that Hong Kong is conducting academic research cooperation projects with the Mainland and Macau. A total of 1417 projects are running of which 1/3 are cooperation projects in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao and 333 academic research cooperation projects with universities in Guangdong and Macau (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, 2019). From the perspective of the dialectical relationship between theory and practice, cooperation produces policies, policies guide cooperation and policies develop with the development of cooperation practices. Today, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation is in full swing and is changing with each passing day. Are any potential changes expected in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy? The question raised in this article is, what changes have taken place in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau higher education cooperation policies? What are the general trends and specific characteristics? What is the logic behind policy changes? What is the direction of the future Guangdong-Hong KongMacao higher education cooperation policy? The research value of the text lies in discovering and recognising the changing laws of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies, which are conducive to further revealing the changing laws of the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao higher education cooperation practices. This article attempts to establish a time-series and content analyses of the 65 related policy texts associated with higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao since 2003 and combines the macro background and micro factors to make a preliminary analysis of the issues mentioned above. This article does not intend to prove the fact that a change in the policy of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao occurred nor evaluate and predict the policy of higher education cooperation in GuangdongHong Kong-Macao. However, by describing and analysing the content of the policy text, it can somewhat reflect certain laws and noteworthy issues concerning the reality of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. Then, it can provide a reference for the formulation and implementation of higher education cooperation policies in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao.

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

111

Literature Review Many studies focus on higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao, which can be divided into different categories. Examples from a regional education cooperation perspective, are the EU model reference, discussion on regional integration and multi-centre integration (Chen & Chen, 2019; Li & Liu, 2018; Wei, 2012); from a higher education perspective are youth entrepreneurial experience, innovation ecosystem construction, teacher education collaborative innovation history, university alliances and university clusters and from a cooperative perspective are integration and community discussions, strategic thinking and other studies (Fang, 2019; Feng et al., 2011; Jiao, 2018; Ma, 2014; Zhou, 2017; Zhu, 2009; Zhuo & Yang, 2019). Regional cooperation is the background of higher education cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Higher education cooperation has increasingly become a cross organizational, cross regional and cross administrative boundary public service supply problem. It is necessary to clarify the public–private relationship, the relationship between the central and local governments, and the horizontal intergovernmental relationship, and form an action mechanism of urban agglomeration cooperative governance in terms of cooperative consensus, system design, organization platform, evaluation mechanism, etc. In particular, under the background of the system with Chinese characteristics, the vertical government plays an important role in the horizontal local government cooperation, and the central government will provide guidance for local autonomous cooperation in terms of property rights definition and rule design. At the same time, the relationship between the central and local governments and the timing of their intervention are changeable, which will affect the policy changes of interregional higher education cooperation. From the perspective of policy changes research, the topics similar to the research on policies and its changes in higher education cooperation with Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao are Institutions and Institutional changes. Some scholars called for the institutionalisation of higher education cooperation with the aid of the institutionalisation of economic cooperation when the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) was signed (Chen & Chen, 2004). The process of historical reform proves that the cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao can promote the innovation of Guangdong’s higher education system (Chen & Wei, 2008). Later theoretical studies introduced the new institutionalism theory based on the ‘economic man’ motives and institutional isomorphism of institutional changes; how to motivate Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao to form compulsory, normative and imitative structures and practices (Xu & Lu, 2019); how institutional supply and demand subjects affect institutional changes and how the ‘compulsory + inducement’ mixed model from the system attributes carries out institutional innovation (Wei & Chen, 2011; Xu & Huang, 2019). Notably, the attention of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy has been deeply mired in institutional criticism. At the time of

112

Q. Liang

the return of Hong Kong and Macao, we had foreseen the system and policy problems of ‘one country, two systems’ ideological guidance and cooperation. We must not ask Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong to ‘connect’ nor expect one party to ‘unify’ the other (Xu et al., 1997). Today, we must admit that the ‘Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools Regulations’ (2003), ‘Implementation Measures for Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools Regulations’ (2004) and other cooperative schooling policies have failed to meet the actual needs of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, although they have been revised several times (Wang, 2019). To sum up, whether it is analysis, evaluation or suggestion, promoting higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is the consistent value pursuit of researchers. Based on the existing research in the process of adjustment and adjustment of long-term cooperation policies and cooperation practices, the policy change of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao deserves attention. Sorting out and analysing the policy text are highly valuable. On the one hand, owing to the nuances of policies and systems, the only institutionalised explanations often lie in the abstract summary or the emphasis on the interpretation of a few node documents, but they lack awareness of flexible policies and policy changes. On the other hand, the evolution of policy practice is slowly resolving the long-criticised, such as ‘one country, two systems, three tax areas and four centres’ system and system differences and the historical system design flaws of ‘Chineseforeign cooperation in running schools’. A difference exists between existing theoretical research and actual conditions. Therefore, in the face of the flexibility and diversity of practice and the innovation and complexity of policy formulation, we can only look for traces of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies from the existing mass policy texts. Therefore, the method and technique are also different from the previous studies. Ground theory in qualitative research is used. The content of this article selects policy materials as the analysis object. The purpose is to present the overall trend and specific characteristics of policy changes and explore the inherent characteristics and logic with the hope of forming a useful supplement to existing research. On the whole, the higher education cooperation policy of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao is an action plan under the guidance of national strategy. The change of higher education cooperation policy of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao is consistent with the national strategic development of open development, coordinated development and innovative development; Specifically, it has the characteristics of policy change from the perspective of discourse evolution: the role goal of higher education cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao has changed from secondary to key, the topic content has changed from unitary to pluralistic, and the guarantee tool has changed from simple to compound (see Fig. 5.1).

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

113

Fig. 5.1 The logic of the policy changes of higher education cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macaoearch methods and data sources

Research Methods Following the content analysis method, this paper uses NVivo software to conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis of textual material information. The content analysis method refers to the method of quantitative analysis and inference of the information contained in the document content and its changes (Qiu & Zou, 2004). NVivo software is a qualitative research tool based on the former two, which uses graphics, audio and video as research objects. The research design and data collection are based on qualitative analysis. At the same time, in the process of data decomposition and analysis, quantitative analysis methods are actively absorbed. The research process of this article is embodied in the use of NVivo 12.0 software to encode a large number of policy texts for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation texts and to identify regularities. Whilst using software for text analysis, we follow the ‘triangular theorem’ of the research method to improve the scientific integrity of the research, to match the macro trends and micro characteristics confirm each other. In the macro-trend grasping section, the literature classification is the main method. After browsing the main content of the policy text, the classification analysis is combined with the research questions and the theoretical framework. The micro-feature analysis section is integrated with the research methods of rooted theory, thereby generating the theory in the original refinement and induction of written materials.

114

Q. Liang

Data Sources Given that no policy text exists under the title of ‘Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Education Cooperation’, we search the relevant policy texts according to the core concept of “higher education cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao”. The source of the text includes national key news websites such as magic weapon of Peking University, websites of governments at all levels and their education departments, people’s daily, Xinhuanet, Pan Pearl River Delta cooperation information network, etc. the text covers a variety of policy topics, such as notices, opinions, plans, outlines, methods, etc. Around the core concept of “Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao higher education cooperation”, identify and determine the following relevant elements of information: in terms of geographical characteristics, such as Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, the Greater Bay Area, Guangdong-Hong KongMacao-Taiwan, the Pan-Pearl River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong and GuangdongMacao; in terms of main characteristics, such as universities, principals, teachers, youth and college students; in terms of domain characteristics, such as education, technology, innovation and culture; in terms of element characteristics, such as platforms, alliances, forums, conferences, laboratories, academics, courses, activities, projects, talents, funds and resources; in terms of behaviour characteristics, such as cooperation, communication, training, mobility, sharing, research, production, research and services. Facilitating coding accuracy, we exclude unofficial policies or those not reported in the news. Eventually, 65 formal and open relevant policy texts were collected from 1997 to the present, establishing a database of ‘Policy Changes in Higher Education Cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao’. Subsequently, the data were encoded.

Encoding Process Firstly, the 65 policy texts obtained were individually imported into NVivo 12.0. The next step involved performing open coding, association coding and core coding in order. The task of the open coding phase is to encode the original data (reference points) into free nodes and to abstract, conceptualise and categorise the lengthy text data; the task of the association coding phase is to classify the free nodes into tree nodes whilst simultaneously classifying the categories and associations and the task of the core coding phase is to systematically search and compare related categories to form a complete concept (Guo et al., 2009). At the open coding stage, the source material (countless reference points) in all the policy texts in the database is conceptualised individually, thereby refining the words, sentences and paragraphs in the relevant segments of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation into a phrase or a sentence (countless free nodes). At the stage of association coding, countless conceptualised words and phrases (several categories) are regularly associated and categorised. At the core stage of the coding stage, common features or concepts (1 word or sentence) of relevance categories are refined.

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

115

Theoretical Saturation Test This article uses the reserved 1/5 policy text data to conduct theoretical saturation tests. No new factor relationship is formed in the following three main categories, namely, the role of the policy text, the content of the issues and the guaranteed tools. Therefore, we believe that the characteristic model of the changes in the GuangdongHong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy constructed in this paper is theoretically saturated.

Trends and Characteristics of Higher Education Cooperation Policies in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau General Trends: Policy Changes in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Higher Education Cooperation Guided by National Strategy Policy changes in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation are consistent with the national strategic development. National strategy is an action strategy formulated to achieve the overall goal of national development. The process of national strategy change is essentially a regional-national-global scale relinking under the influence of globalisation (Zhang, 2013). The traces of countries’ strategic development and change in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau regions appear, both the economic cross-border trade strategy between the Mainland and Hong Kong, Macau, and the Pearl River Delta’s innovation and entrepreneurship development strategy that includes Hong Kong and Macau, even more the upgraded version of the international Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development strategy. This condition meets China’s development needs of reform and opening up, participation in economic globalisation, development of ‘one country, two systems’ and building a community of shared future for mankind. In addition, higher education is an integral part of the national economic and social development. China-ASEAN, the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other regional higher education cooperation have reflected the clear national strategic leadership path (Yuan & Zhang, 2019; Zhou & Luo, 2016). The policy changing trend in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao higher education cooperation is also consistent with the pace of national strategy. Based on the theoretical framework of the national strategic change and the factual nature of the policy text, the history of policy changes was divided into three stages in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation. Regarding the staged research, we believe that if you want to master the law of development and change of things, you have to split the development history into stages and then stitch the

116

Q. Liang

characteristics of stage and fragmentation into the overall picture of the development of things. The changing trend of higher education cooperation policy should be beneficial. Determining the key nodes for phase division is not simple. GuangdongHong Kong-Macao has a long history of non-governmental cooperation in the field of higher education. The relevant agreements and regulations on university admissions and adult education, the legal provisions on the cross-border movement of personnel and the contract documents for scientific research cooperation have been increasing after the reform and opening up. In the existing official government texts, information on higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao appears after China’s entry into the WTO. In 2001, Guangdong Province chose GuangdongHong Kong-Macao cooperation on science and education as the topic of the ‘Tenth Five-Year Plan’ to open to the outside world. In 2002, the main points of the Ministry of Education’s work mentioned for the first time the opportunity to join the WTO to further expand international exchanges and cooperation in education and further strengthen cooperation with Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The concept of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao has become the consensus of the government, the market and education. In 2003, official documents of the State Council were officially issued to standardise the management of domestic and overseas cooperative schools, including Hong Kong and Macau. In the same year, the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macau respectively signed the ‘Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement’ (referred to as ‘CEPA’) to open the institutional era of formal exchanges and cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Macao. This event was followed by the first ‘Pan-Pearl River Delta’ in 2004, the signing of the ‘Regional Cooperation and Development Forum’ and the ‘Framework Agreement on Strengthening the Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Education Exchange and Cooperation’, which signifies the official launch of the Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Higher Education Cooperation. A relatively unanimous view was that in 2008, the promulgation of the Outline of the Pearl River Delta Region’s Reform and Development Plan made the Pearl River Delta which is a national strategy that opened a new period of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. In 2017, the State Council government work report and the framework agreement of ‘Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation and Promoting the Construction of the Greater Bay Area’ made the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area which is a national strategy and promoted the further development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies. To sum up, this paper summarizes the three stages of higher education cooperation policy of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao under the guidance of national strategy as open development stage, coordinated development stage and innovative development stage. Since the 10th Five Year Plan of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1997, the return of Hong Kong and Macao, China’s accession to the WTO and other major events have promoted communication and exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao, and gradually started Sino foreign cooperation in running schools and higher education cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao; Since the 17th anniversary of the CPC in 2007, the regional coordinated development strategy and the policy of promoting the regional

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

117

development of the Pearl River Delta have further strengthened the cooperation and content of higher education between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao; Since the 19th anniversary of the CPC in 2017, the international development policy of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao has entrusted the higher education cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao with the important task of world talent highland construction and international innovation drive. Therefore, this paper takes 2017 as the second key node in the process of policy change of higher education cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao (see Table 5.1). Judging from the content identification and statistics of the policy text, the number of higher education cooperation policies and content in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao has shown a periodical upward trend as the national strategy changes (see Table 5.2). On the whole, there are 13 policy texts in the open development stage, with an average annual number of 1.3; There are 37 policy texts in the stage of coordinated development, with an average annual number of 3.7; There are 15 policy texts in the innovation and development stage, with an average of 5 texts per year. From the perspective of the issuing department, the relevant contents of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao are increasingly appearing in national documents, indicating that higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao has become an urgent need for national development. From the perspective of file types, with the upgrading of the national strategy, the contents of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao are increasingly involved in education documents at all levels. The education industry norms are used to promote communication and cooperation. The stage of service cooperation Unicom external is 1.2, but it has risen to 2.7 in the world’s leading innovative cooperation stage. Open development stage: Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao higher education cooperation policy began to form (1997–2006). Opening up and development is the strategic layout of China and the world in terms of trade, capital, technology, services, etc. under the trend of economic globalization after reform and opening up. At the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Comrade Jiang Zemin put forward, “in the face of the trend of economic and technological globalization, we should take a more positive attitude towards the world, improve the all-round, multilevel and wide-ranging opening-up pattern, We should develop an open economy, enhance international competitiveness, optimize the economic structure and improve the quality of the national economy.” Since 2003, under the background of the return of Hong Kong and Macao and China’s accession to the WTO, the advantages of ‘one country, two systems’ have been exerted. In the field of science and education, Hong Kong and Macau have slowly become China’s bridge to the world, strengthening the link between Hong Kong, Macao and the inland. Accordingly, it laid the foundation for Hong Kong and Macao higher education cooperation policy formulation. Although the word ‘science and education’ was excluded in the cooperation area of the CEPA agreement in 2003, higher education-related Chinese medical science research, tourism professional and technical personnel exchange and qualifications of doctors of higher education have become the specific content of service trade and its investment facilitation. At the same time, the opening of commerce and trade in

118

Q. Liang

Table 5.1 Relevant documents of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy Stages

Document name

Open development stage (2003–2006)

Level

Category

Number

Regulations of the State Council People’s Republic of China on Sino-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (2003)

National

Comprehensive Regulations on National Education

1–1

Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (2003)

Ministry of Commerce, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Finance Department

Ministries

Region Finance Department

1–2

Arrangement for Closer Economic Relations between the Mainland and Macau (2003)

Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Economy and Finance of Macao Special Administrative Region

Ministries

Region Finance Department

1–3

Measures for the Ministry of Implementation of Education the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (2004)

Ministries

Running school by society

1–4

Pan-Pearl River “9 + 2” Delta Regional Provincial Cooperation Government Framework Agreement (2004)

Local

–

1–5

Local

–

1–6

Framework Agreement on Strengthening Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Educational Exchanges and Cooperation (2004)

Issue department

“9 + 2” Provincial and District Education Departments

(continued)

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

119

Table 5.1 (continued) Stages

Coordinated development stage (2007–2016)

Document name

Issue department

Level

Category

Number

Mainland and Hong Kong Memorandum on Mutual Recognition of Higher Education Degree Certificates (2004)

Ministry of Education, Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau

Ministries

–

1–7

……

……

……

……

…

Notice of the Ministry of Ministry of Education education on recruiting postgraduates from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in 2007 (2006)

Ministries

Higher Education

1–13

“Eleventh Five-Year Plan” for Education Development in Guangdong Province (2007)

Local

Science and Technology, Education

2–1

Outline of the Plan Development for Reform and and Reform Development of Commission the Pearl River Delta Region (2008)

Ministries

Urban Planning and Development Construction

2–2

Notice of the Development National and Reform Development and Commission Reform Commission on Printing and Distributing the Overall Development Plan of Hengqin (2009)

Ministries

Urban Planning and Development Construction, China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone

2–3

Guangdong-Hong Kong Cooperation Framework Agreement (2010)

Local

–

2–4

General Office of Guangdong Provincial Government

Guangdong Province, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government

(continued)

120

Q. Liang

Table 5.1 (continued) Stages

Document name

Issue department

Level

Category

Notice of the Party Central Central Committee, Committee of the State Council Communist Party of China and the State Council on Printing and Distributing the “Outline of the National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010–2020)” (2011)

National

Party Leadership 2–5 Regulations

Notice of the Development National and Reform Development and Commission Reform Commission on Printing and Distributing the Development Plan of the Nansha New District in Guangzhou (2012)

Ministries

Ministries Urban 2–6 Planning, Development and Construction

Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Deepening Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation (2016)

State Council

National

National Economic Management

2–7

……

……

……

……

……

Ministries

Educational Technology Development Plan

2–37

Notice of the Ministry of Ministry of Education Education on Printing and Distributing the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Scientific and Technological Development of Colleges and Universities” (2016)

Number

(continued)

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

121

Table 5.1 (continued) Stages

Document name

Issue department

Level

Category

Number

Innovative development stage (2017–2019)

“Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” for National Education Development (2017)

State Council

National

–

3–1

Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation Promoting the Greater Bay Area Construction Framework Agreement (2017)

Development and Reform Commission, Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, Macao SAR Government

Ministries, Local

China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone

3–2

Memorandum on Strengthening the Exchange and Cooperation of Higher Education between Guangdong and Hong Kong (2019)

Guangdong Province, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government

Local

–

3–3

The Central Party Central Committee of the Committee, Communist Party State Council of China and the State Council issued the “Outline of the Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area” (2019)

National

Party Leadership 3–4 Regulations

China Education Modernization 2035 (2019)

Party Central Committee, State Council

National

Party Leadership 3–5 Regulations

Implementation plan for accelerating the modernization of education (2018–2022) (2019)

General Office of the Party Central Committee and General Office of the State Council

National

Party Leadership 3–6 Regulations

……

……

……

……

…… (continued)

122

Q. Liang

Table 5.1 (continued) Stages

Document name

Issue department

Opinions of the Party Central Central Committee, Committee of the State Council Communist Party of China and the State Council on Supporting Shenzhen in Building a Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics (2019)

Level

Category

Number

National

Shenzhen 3–15 Special Economic Zone, Spiritual Civilization Construction

Hong Kong and Macao further promoted the formation of the ‘Framework Agreement on Strengthening the Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Education Exchange and Cooperation’, the ‘Memorandum between the Mainland and Hong Kong on Mutual Recognition of Higher Education Degree Certificates’ and other policies to further promote higher education exchanges and cooperation. Coordinated development stage: the preliminary development of GuangdongHong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy (2007–2016). Coordinated development refers to a series of national strategic plans to promote the coordinated development of regional economy, such as the large-scale development of the western region, the revitalisation of the old industrial base in the northeast, the rise of the central region and the encouragement of the first development in the east. Since 2008, along with the promulgation of a series of programmatic documents guiding the development of the Southeast Coastal Region, the regional development of higher education cooperation policies in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau has been promoted. The Outline of the Reform and Development Plan for the Pearl River Delta Region issued in December 2008, clearly states the need to promote the development of higher education, relax the scope of cooperation in running schools and strive for educational reform demonstrations. The later development plans such as Hengqin, Nansha and Qianhai, all have incorporated the elements of higher education cooperation. The ‘Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation’ issued in March 2016 requires the ‘9 + 2’ parties to play a complementary role in economic cooperation and innovation-driven advantages to promote regional synergy development and list specific indicators in areas such as higher education cooperation platforms, teachers, courses, bases, employment and personnel training. At the same time, the role of higher education in regional exchange integration, economic restructuring and social governance has become increasingly prominent.

Total number/mean of documents

13/1.3

37/3.7

15/5

Stage

Open development stage (2003–2006)

Coordinated development stage (2007–2016)

Innovative development stage (2017–2019)

4

5

2

6

9

25

8

Local

7

19

7

Other comprehensive

3

Ministries

National 2

Document type

Distribution department

8/2.7

18/1.8

7/0.7

Education total/ mean

Party Leadership Regulations, Free Trade Area, Technology, Education

Urban planning and development, science and technology, education

Related to Hong Kong and Macao commerce and trade, supplemented by technology and education

Main content

Table 5.2 Detailed statistics of relevant documents of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy (Unit: Units)

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes … 123

124

Q. Liang

Innovative development stage: the deepening of higher education cooperation policies in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao (2017–2019). Innovative development is a strategic design for China to integrate with the world in an all-round way under the comprehensive opening-up and the development of “one country, two systems”. Since 2017, the international strategic design for the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and its innovation-driven, talent-height construction needs have promoted Guangdong Hong Kong, and the Macao higher education cooperation has deepened. In March 2017, in the government work report, Premier Li Keqiang explicitly proposed to deepen cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Macao and accelerate the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration, marking the formal upgrade of the development of the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area into a national development strategy. In July, Comrade Xi Jinping personally witnessed the signing of the framework agreement of ‘Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation and Promoting the Construction of the Greater Bay Area’, putting forward new requirements in terms of high-level participation in international cooperation, the establishment of a science and technology industry innovation centre and a modern service industry base for advanced manufacturing. The ‘Outline of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Plan’ issued in February 2019 states that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should accelerate the development of new kinetic energy and achieve innovation-driven development based on the existing foundation, building a world-class bay area and world-class city clusters. In March, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation issued relevant policies to implement tax concessions for high-level talents in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao and further promote higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. At present, the comprehensive economic and social development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area requires the corresponding Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy support. From the historical experience of the development of the World Bay Area (New York Bay Area in the United States, San Francisco Bay Area in the United States and Tokyo Bay Area in Japan), technological innovation is the core driving force for the development of the Bay Area. The International Bay Area relies on research universities and scientific research institutions to form a combination of factors in finance, talent, services, industry, teaching and scientific research, which has largely converged regional decentralised innovation factors and promoted the Bay Area. It also promoted the continuous production of knowledge, the commercialisation of technological achievements and the diffusion of innovation forces in the Bay Area. The four major bay areas all have significant agglomeration effects of high-quality colleges and universities, possessing strong competitiveness in higher education. The agglomeration advantages of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao will be beneficial to the overall economic and social development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau.

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

125

Specific Features: Policy Changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Education Cooperation from the Perspective of Policy Discourse Evolution Policy discourse analysis is a cutting-edge policy research method that is widely used in policy change research (Li et al., 2015). This article analyses policy discourse from the three dimensions of role objectives, issue content and guaranteed tools based on the text layout characteristics of the policy text. After text analysis using the content analysis method and Nvivo12 software, the policy discourse evolution of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy was finally refined into three core characteristics: role objectives from secondary to important, topic content from monistic to multiple and guaranteed tools from simple to compound. From secondary to important: the role and objective evolution of GuangdongHong Kong-Macau higher education cooperation policy. The role of the policy is the functional status and purpose value of policy formulation and implementation. The role of the higher education cooperation policy of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is summarised in terms of time and changes in national strategies. It is summarised for the convenience of foreign trade, for the economic and social development of the Pearl River Delta and for the international Talent and innovation support (see Table 5.3). For the convenience of foreign trade, it reflects that the function of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is to obey and serve the commerce and trade between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Macao (e.g. 2003-2-1) to promote common economic prosperity. For the economic and social development of the Pearl River Delta, it reflects that Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation is not only an important area of regional cooperation in the Pearl River Delta regional development but also an important driving force to promote regional economic structural adjustment and enhance regional development competitiveness (e.g. 2008-3-1) for regional economic structural adjustment and development vitality. For the support of international talents and innovation, it reflects the important role of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation in the world’s talent highlands and international innovation drive, for the construction of the world’s talent highlands and the humanities bay area (e.g. 2019-2-4). Judging from the distribution of policy texts and their reference points, the role objectives of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies have evolved from secondary to important (see Table 5.4). At the same time, the characteristics of the evolution of the role of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies are also consistent with the trend of policy changes in national strategies and the number of educational policies. When the cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Macao was first launched in the field of commerce, official cooperation in the field of education had not yet started officially. Information about higher education, professional and technical personnel and qualification certification were all branded with international trade. For example,

126

Q. Liang

Table 5.3 Role-target coding of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy Coding level

Name

Core coding

Role objectives from secondary to important

Association coding Foreign trade

Regional development

Talent innovation

Open coding

2004-1-1 inter-provincial openness and regional overall competitiveness 2004-4-1 Services for regional economic construction and social development 2006-1-1 regional brand, influence and scientific development 2008-3-1 regional economic structural adjustment and development vitality 2019-2-2 the construction of a regional quality living circle…

2004-3-1 the international exchange of knowledge and talents 2007-2-1 Talent and intellectual support for national reform and opening up and socialist construction 2007-2-3 regional foreign exchange 2010-3-4 create international resource sharing 2019-2-4 the construction of the world talent highland and the humanities bay area…

2003-2-1 common economic prosperity 2003-2-2 trade and investment facilitation 2004-2-2 Shenzhen-Hong Kong economic and trade cooperation 2006-2-1 the economic and trade cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong and Macao 2010-4-1 service industry cooperation…

Note 2003-2-1, 2003 indicates the year of the file, 2 indicates the time ranking of the file in the file distribution in that year, and 1 indicates the time ranking of the free node in the file distribution; the same applies below

education services are called Cross-border delivery, mutual enrolment is called overseas consumption, teacher-student exchange is called natural person flow and cooperative schooling is called commercial existence. In the CEPA signed in 2003, the policy objective of higher education cooperation is to facilitate trade and investment in Hong Kong and Macao. Although requirements are set for the exchange of professional and technical personnel, science and technology as an important area of cooperation appeared formally in the seventh supplementary agreement of CEPA (2010). Therefore, during the period of Unicom Hong Kong and Macau, the role of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy was a secondary status or ‘supporting role’. During the development of the Pearl River Delta regional development strategy, the Hong Kong and Macao commerce and trade were gradually included in the Pearl River Delta regional development geographically. Higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao became an important field for regional exchanges and cooperation and the comprehensive development of the regional economy and society, as it plays a vital role in promoting regional industrial structure adjustment. As the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has been upgraded to an internationalised Bay Area standard, innovation has become the main driving force for international development. The goal of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy is to think about how to improve

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

127

Table 5.4 Distribution of the roles and targets of higher education cooperation policies in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Code year

Total

Foreign trade

Regional development

Talent innovation

Policy text

Reference point

Policy text

Reference point

Policy text

Reference point

Policy text

Reference point

2003

4

6

2

4

2

2

0

0

2004

8

9

3

4

4

4

1

1

2005

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

2006

3

5

1

2

2

3

2007

4

6

1

1

1

1

2

4

2008

5

7

1

1

2

4

2

2

2009

8

14

2

2

4

10

2

2

2010

7

13

2

3

3

6

2

4

2011

8

14

1

1

4

6

3

7

2012

4

9

0

0

1

3

3

6

2013

2

3

0

0

1

1

1

2

2014

7

15

0

0

3

3

4

12

2015

4

6

0

0

2

2

2

4

2016

10

15

0

0

4

5

6

10

2017

10

28

0

0

4

9

6

19

2018

4

5

0

0

2

2

2

3

2019

9

25

0

0

4

15

5

10

the level of science and education and produce talent intelligence, innovation and cultural prosperity, providing lasting kinetic energy for the comprehensive development of society. Higher education cooperation itself as a policy goal achieves a change from nothing. Higher education cooperation policy has become a key area or a ‘protagonist’ in the increasing education and regional comprehensive policy texts. Role functions are gradually withdrawn from the policy text. From monistic to multiple: The evolution of issues and contents of GuangdongHong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy. The issues and content of policy are the main topic and content involved in policy formulation and implementation under the guidance of policy objectives. The content of the issues of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy includes the cooperation issues themselves and the external soft and hard conditions that promote cooperation, including system identification and platform construction, exchanges, cooperation and publicity services (see Table 5.5). System identification refers to the knowledge cooperation of all parties in scientific research, teaching and other knowledge cooperation in the education system, concept innovation and qualification level, following the same rules. System identification plays a basic role in higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, such as (2003-2-1) mutual

2004-1-1 Network sharing of science and education resources 2007-1-1 Construction of Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation Circle 2009-2-1 Construction of entrepreneurial R & D alliance 2010-3-1 Industry-University-Research Innovation Platform was established 2012-4-1 Creation of digital platform for resource sharing 2016-7-1 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory Construction 2017-1-1 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao University Alliance Construction 2019-1-1 Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao Technology Innovation Corridor was established 2019-2-1 Research Tour Demonstration Base Construction…

Open coding

2003-2-1 mutual recognition of professional qualifications 2003-2-2 Standardization construction 2007-1-1 joint evaluation review 2008-3-1 school mode reform 2008-3-2 Reform of innovation mechanism 2009-3-1 innovation system construction 2010-3-1 management concept reference 2009-3-2 Mutual recognition of credits 2012-3-1 qualification certification Construction of 2012-4-1 evaluation system 2019-4-1 Education system reform…

Platform construction

Issues from monistic to multiple

Core coding

Association coding System recognition

Name

Coding level

2003-1-1 Sino-foreign cooperation in running schools 2004-1-1 exchange of scientific research talents 2004-4-1 joint school running 2004-4-2 Industry-University-Research Cooperation 2004-4-3 Cooperation and exchange of teacher training 2004-4-4 Graduate Information Exchange 2004-5-1 Talent exchange and cooperation 2008-2-1 exchange of innovation elements 2010-1-1 high-level talent training 2016-2-1 Think Tank Exchange 2016-2-2 Youth exchange…

Exchange and cooperation

Table 5.5 Content coding of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy issues

2004-1-1 Achievement transformation platform construction 2004-2-1 Cultivation of Science and Technology Market System 2009-3-1 Industrial Transformation Talent Support 2010-1-1 Construction of Asia–Pacific Talent Education Hub 2010–3-1 Intellectual Property Protection Services 2017-1-1 exchange and cooperation brand building 2018-2-1 international first-class technology service demonstration 2019-2-1 Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Promotion 2019-2-2 National Cultural Identity Education…

Publicity service

128 Q. Liang

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

129

recognition of professional qualifications and (2003-2-2) standardisation construction. Platform construction refers to the infrastructure that provides support for higher education exchanges and cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao, including software and hardware, such as (2009-2-1) the establishment of an entrepreneurial R & D alliance and (2010-3-1) the establishment of an industry-university-research innovation platform. Exchanges and cooperation are the core content of GuangdongHong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation and common issues appearing in policy texts. Based on the tasks of talent training, scientific research, cultural heritage and serving the society in universities, the entire process of higher education in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao revolves around talent training and scientific research in exchange and cooperation, such as (2004-4-2) industry-universityresearch cooperation and (2010-1-1) high-level talent training. The publicity service is the output and serves the society of higher education cooperation in GuangdongHong Kong-Macao. It is the meaning and goal result of exchange and cooperation, such as (2004-2-1) the cultivation of science and technology market system and (2009-3-1) industrial transformation talent support. Judging from the distribution of the policy text and its reference points, the content of the topics of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Education Cooperation Policy has evolved from monistic to multiple (see Table 5.6). With the deepening of the degree of cooperation, the depth and breadth of Guangdong-Hong KongMacao higher education cooperation topics have been expanded, and exchanges and cooperation have appeared most frequently, appearing in nearly every policy text. The frequency of other issues is increasing with the change in time series; totally, the frequency of emergence is generally on the rise. The issues of platform construction and publicity services have achieved a change from nothing and received attention. From a specific point of view, taking communication and cooperation as an example, the content of the topic initially included exchanges in basic areas of science, technology, education and industry-university-research exchanges. It later expanded to high-level exchanges, think tank exchanges and government-industryresearch-funding cooperation. The reference point was in 2003 which appears on average once in the policy text of the year and six times in the policy text of 2019, which has been expanded in number, depth and breadth. From simple to complex: the evolution of guaranteed tools of GuangdongHong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy. Policy guaranteed tools are methods and means adopted to achieve policy goals. Depending on the policy goals, in certain cases, policy itself is a policy guaranteed tool. The classification of policy guaranteed tools in this article draws on the classification criteria of threepoint policy tools proposed by Rothwell and Zegveld (1981), that is, supply, environment and demand and other common classifications of order clauses, fiscal policies, management regulations, authority and contracts. In fact, no consistent standard exists; crossovers and conflicts may occur, but achieving policy effectiveness is meaningful (Gu, 2006). To illustrate, investment in resources and the tax incentives are both supply-driven and environmental impact tools as well as financial policies. This article considers that the guaranteed tools for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher

5

17

–

5

6

7

10

13

10

10

2

7

6

24

21

4

8

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

49

12

65

58

20

28

3

26

19

35

24

28

18

11

–

36

7

2

1

5

4

2

2

1

3

2

3

2

2

1

0

–

4

2

Policy text

8

2

12

7

4

5

1

6

2

5

3

10

1

0

–

5

4

Reference point

System approval

Policy text

Reference point

Total

2003

Code year

3

1

6

8

1

2

0

1

2

3

3

1

2

1

–

4

0

Policy text

23

4

14

16

1

6

0

3

2

12

10

2

7

2

–

11

0

Reference point

Platform construction

2

1

7

6

2

2

1

4

5

4

3

2

2

2

–

5

3

Policy text

12

3

29

20

13

16

2

14

14

13

11

11

6

5

–

14

3

Reference point

Exchange cooperation

Table 5.6 Distribution of topics and contents of cooperation policies for higher education in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau

1

1

3

6

1

1

0

2

1

3

2

2

1

2

–

4

0

Policy text

6

3

10

15

2

1

0

3

1

5

3

5

4

4

–

6

0

Reference point

Publicity service

130 Q. Liang

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

131

education cooperation policies can be divided into development planning, organisational coordination, resources and environment and social participation (see Table 5.7). Development planning is an institutional constraint and a reference blueprint, guiding cooperation in a rule-based and standardised manner, such as (2004-4-1) feasibility studies and (2010-4-1) fiscal and taxation policy support. Organisational coordination means the cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education which requires administrative arrangements and overall coordination of administrative arrangements in various places to achieve smooth process, such as (2004-1-2) the establishment of a joint meeting of executive heads and the consensus of highlevel meetings (2010-1-1). Resources and environment mean all external human, material and financial resources on which Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation depends, such as (2010-4-2) provision of work and living Table 5.7 Coding of guaranteed tools for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy Coding level Name Core coding Guaranteed tools from simple to composite Association coding

Development planning

Organisation coordination

Resource environment

Social participation

Opening coding

2004-4-1 feasibility study 2004-4-1 thematic plan preparation 2007-1-1 Strategic Planning of Innovation Circle 2009-1-1 customs clearance system innovation 2009-1-2 land management system reform 2010-4-1 fiscal and taxation policy support 2012-3-1 International Cooperation Test 2012-3-2 Decentralization of school autonomy 2017-1-1 separation of management and evaluation…

2003-2-1 joint steering committee and liaison office was established 2003-3-1 consensus consultation 2004-1-1 information exchange and collaboration 2004-1-2 Construction of the Joint Executive Heads Meeting System 2010-1-1 high-level meeting consensus reached 2019-2-1 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao University Alliance…

2010-4-1 Business Environment Optimisation 2010-4-1 fiscal and taxation policy support 2010-4-2 Provide convenience for work and life 2012-4-1 college land protection 2014-2-1 multi-channel fundraising 2016-6-1 Teacher housing security 2016-6-2 School space optimisation…

2010-1-1 consultation and discussion in various fields 2010-1-2 industry association rules to discuss 2010-1-3 establishment of unified service market 2014-1-1 expert consultation was valued 2016-7-1 extensive publicity and mobilization 2016-6-1 performance evaluation and fair competition The establishment of the 2019-2-1 administrative consulting system…

132

Q. Liang

convenience and (2014-2-1) multi-channel funding. Social participation means that Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation cannot be separated from the active participation of all sectors of society. Social participation also refers to Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation activities themselves. It is a socialisation process guided by social needs such as (2010-1-2) industry formulation of association rules and (2010-1-3) establishment of unified service market. Judging from the distribution of policy texts and their reference points, the guaranteed tools for higher education cooperation policies in Guangdong-Hong KongMacao have gradually changed from simple to complex (see Table 5.8). In the early days of the mainland official link between Hong Kong, Macau and Macau, the policy of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao relied on administrative forces for promotion and coordination, that is, organising and coordinating tools, which belonged to a state of ‘bridge’ for higher education cooperation in various places that would soon be officially launched. In-depth and comprehensive, increasing tools of social participation, resources and environment and development planning have emerged. Social market demand guides higher education cooperation from government-led administration to social development under social participation. It belongs to the state of providing comprehensive support for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation, such as related transportation, finance, land, taxation and customs clearance policies, providing support for the flow of scientific research talents in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. In recent years, the frequency of development of guaranteed tools such as development planning, organisation and coordination, resources and environment, and social participation has increased. From the perspective of the relationship among various guaranteed tools, they have played the effect ‘1 + 1 + 1 + 1 > 4’, from simplified, fragmented to compound and networked, thereby slowly solving the problem of cooperation. For example, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Plan Outline mentioned the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao University Alliance, which is an organisation and coordination tool with the principals of various universities as the main body under the administrative support of the three governments, as an informal tool. The University President becomes an important node in exchange and cooperation, which can mobilise wider social participation. With the increase in the number of colleges and universities, the degree of social participation and resource integration will also increase and play an important role in terms of mutual recognition of credits, scientific research cooperation and talent exchange.

2

10

–

5

3

3

7

9

8

7

2

11

5

16

15

2

11

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

18

6

32

39

8

20

8

17

19

32

28

6

4

5

–

24

8

3

1

4

4

1

4

0

3

3

3

1

0

1

2

–

2

0

6

2

9

11

1

7

0

10

3

7

4

0

1

2

–

3

0

Reference point

Policy text

Policy text

Reference point

Development plan

Total

2003

Code year

2

0

4

4

2

2

1

1

2

1

3

1

1

1

–

5

2

Policy text

3

0

5

7

3

4

2

1

6

6

16

1

2

1

–

16

8

Reference point

Organisation and coordination

3

1

3

5

1

4

1

2

2

3

2

1

1

1

–

0

0

Policy text

Resources and environment

Table 5.8 Distribution of guaranteed tools for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy

3

4

9

18

1

8

6

4

5

12

4

4

1

1

–

0

0

Reference point

3

0

4

3

1

1

0

1

1

2

1

1

0

1

–

3

0

Policy text

6

0

9

3

3

1

0

2

5

7

4

1

0

1

–

5

0

Reference point

Social participation

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes … 133

134

Q. Liang

Logic of Policy Changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Education Cooperation The logic of the policy changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation. Generally, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies are action plans under the guidance of national strategies. The policy changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation are consistent with the national strategic development. It has the characteristics of policy changes from the perspective of discourse evolution. The role of higher education cooperation between Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao has changed from secondary to important, the content of the topic has changed from monistic to multiple and the guaranteed tools have changed from simple to complex (see Fig. 5.2).

Policy Changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Education Cooperation Are Affected by Economic, Social and Environmental Factors The logic of policy change, on the one hand, can be broadly divided into subjective causes caused by changes in people’s perception and objective causes caused by changes in the social environment. On the other hand, early policy scientists

Fig. 5.2 Logic of changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policies

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

135

attributed to institutionalism, socioeconomics, rational choice and the Internet and ideas (Yang, 2007). National strategy changes in the process of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy change are the most obvious influencing factors of the economic and social environment. They provide development opportunities for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation and put forward urgent requirements. According to the National Bureau of Statistics data, in 2018, the total economic volume of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area reached 10.9 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.0% over 2017; the total economic volume is predicted to continue its steady growth in 2019, and the amount will reach 11.78 trillion yuan. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has a regional background of integration of ‘one country, two systems’ and ‘the Belt and Road Initiative’. Economic development and educational development have a high degree of overlap and dependence, which will help GuangdongHong Kong-Macao talent cooperation demonstration zones and the construction of an international science and technology innovation centre. Apart from national-level strategies, regional strategies also have important influences. For example, Macau’s strategy of ‘rejuvenating Macau through education and building Macau by talents’ has expanded the autonomous space for the development of universities, mutual recognition of credits, information exchange, exchange of teaching experience and quality of education evaluation, teacher research and more. From the perspective of economic volume, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area already has the strength comparable to the world’s three largest bay areas. However, a certain gap persists between the standards for the integration and interaction of world-class comprehensive universities, higher education and innovation, cities, talents, culture and values. It requires the joint support of political, economic, cultural, social, technological and other environmental factors to form a joint force of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. Higher education in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was affected by historical conditions, uneven development and differences in educational concepts, which also rendered cooperation in higher education for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area a difficult task.

Policy Changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Education Cooperation Affected by Stakeholder Factors Stakeholder theory emphasises that all parties must pay attention and be involved in the organisation’s activities. Therefore, all subjects in the process of policy development, implementation and feedback can be called stakeholders. Clarifying the main stakeholders in the policy process is an effective way to recognise and resolve conflicts of interest (Wang et al., 2012). The role objectives, issues and guarantee of all policies are essentially the result of stakeholder games. The Guangdong-Hong

136

Q. Liang

Kong-Macao higher education cooperation policy involves the interests of governments at all levels, universities, research institutes, enterprises, associations and individuals. At the same time, various entities have jointly promoted the policy changes in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao higher education cooperation, such as leaders’ attention and social participation and market-oriented conduct. From the perspective of government behaviour, considering that science and education are an important driving force for local development, governments at all levels actively support and publicise the work of higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao to form a market transmission effect, providing toplevel design and overall guidance for solving problems such as talent training, cultural exchange and scientific research cooperation. For example, the establishment of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao University Alliance was supported by the Ministry of Education, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council and the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government. With the support of the government, an increasing number of universities have joined to promote the sharing of educational resources and deepen the degree of cooperation between schools. From the perspective of the development of enterprises and industries, empirical research proves that the development and upgrading of regional industrial structures have a strong dependence on regional education levels and talent structures (Zhu, 2006). The Hong Kong and Macau Greater Bay Area has a broad market demand. From the perspective of universities and research institutes, universities and research institutes are important subjects to promote higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. On the one hand, universities in Hong Kong and Macao have international advantages in terms of scientific research. On the other hand, mainland universities have advantages in running school resources and employment markets. The complementary advantages of the two sides provide possibilities for cooperation. Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), have been cooperating in running the schools. The universities of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao have jointly established more than 10 universities in the Greater Bay Area. The alliance effect including the online open courses of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao universities has gradually resolved the problems of recognition of credits, academic qualifications and qualifications. From the perspective of associations and individuals, higher education cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is conducive to the development of the humanistic environment in the region. It provides a high-quality living circle that is suitable for living and business. Informal institutional influences such as industry alliances, expert consultation, ethnic cultural identity and funding for non-governmental education have potential influence on the formulation and changes in formal systems and policies.

5 Trends, Features and Logics of Policy Changes …

137

References Chen, C., & Chen, W. (2004). Institutional cooperation between CEPA and higher education in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. Higher Education Research, 1, 39–42. Chen, C., & Wei, H. (2008). Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao cooperation: An important choice for the innovation of Guangdong’s higher education system. Higher Engineering Education Research, 5, 64–67 + 89. Chen, X., & Chen, X. (2019). Convergent innovation under multi-centers: Challenges and solutions for higher education clusters in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Journal of Suzhou University (Education Science Edition), 2, 13–19. Fang, M. (2019). Policy mechanism and optimization path for youth entrepreneurship in Hong Kong and Macau in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Youth Exploration, 5. Feng, Z., Zhou, H., & Zou, Y. (2011). Strategic thinking and countermeasures of higher education exchange and cooperation between Guangdong and Macao in the new era. Modern University Education, 2, 102–106. Gu, J. (2006). Significance, foundation and level of public policy tool research. Journal of Public Management, 4. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. (2019). Higher Education Cooperation Greater Bay Area “brainstorm”. http://k.sina.com.cn/article_1784473157_6a5ce645020016eo7.html?from=edu Guo, Y., et al. (2009). Analysis of qualitative research data: Nvivo8 utilization collection. Higher Education Press. Jiao, L. (2018). Research on the construction strategy of university-Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area strategic alliance. Higher Education Exploration, 8, 20–24. Li, J., & Liu, H. (2018). The logic and approach of higher education integration in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area. Higher Education Research, 10, 31–36. Li, Y., Yin, X., & He, J. (2015). Policy discourse analysis: How to become a methodology. Public Administration Review, 5. Lin, J., & Weng, H. (2009). Historical development and trend of higher education cooperative education in Mainland China and Hong Kong. China Higher Education Research, 6, 51–53. Ma, Z. (2014). 30 years of collaborative innovation: Review and prospect of teacher education cooperation between Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. Journal of South China Normal University (Social Science Edition), 6. Qiu, J., & Zou, F. (2004). Research on content analysis method. Journal of Library Science in China, 2, 14–19. Rothwell, R., & Zegveld, W. (1981). Industrial innovation and public policy: Preparing for the 1980s and the 1990s. Frances Printer. Wang, L., Wang, Y., & Wang, Y. (2012). Interests consideration in the process of public policy— Analysis based on stakeholder theory. Chinese Journal of Management, 4, 80–84. Wang, Z. (2019). Connotation, orientation, dilemma and realization path of international higher education demonstration zone in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Higher Education Exploration, 8, 62–67. Wei, H. (2012). Enlightenment of EU higher education cooperation on Guangdong-Hong KongMacao higher education cooperation. Higher Education Exploration, 4, 43–46. Wei, H., & Chen, C. (2011). Analysis on the changes of higher education cooperation system between Guangdong and Hong Kong. Journal of Guangdong University of Technology (Social Science Edition), 1, 6–10. Xu, C., & Huang, Y. (2019). Research on the integration and development of higher education in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from the perspective of institutional changes. China Higher Education Research, 7, 25–32. Xu, C., & Lu, X. (2019). The integration and development of higher education in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: Concept, reality and system isomorphism. Higher Education Research, 1, 28–36.

138

Q. Liang

Xu, H., Wu, F., Feng, Z., Huang, X., & Yang, Y. (1997). Investigation report on higher education exchanges and cooperation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. Higher Education Exploration, 1, 21–30. Yang, D. (2007). Research on western policy changes: A review of thirty years. Journal of China National School of Administration, 4, 104–108. Yuan, J., & Zhang, H. (2019). The integrated development of higher education in the Yangtze River Delta: Motivation, connotation and mechanism innovation. China Higher Education Research, 7, 33–38. Zhang, J. (2013). Scale reconstruction of state-region governance: An analysis based on the perspective of “National Strategic Regional Planning”. Urban Development Research, 5, 45–50. Zhou, G., & Luo, X. (2016). Significance and strategy of promoting China-ASEAN higher education cooperation—Based on the “Belt and Road” perspective. Higher Education Research, 10, 37–41. Zhou, R. (2017). On the innovation ecosystem of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Opening Herald, 3, 53–56. Zhuo, Z., & Yang T. (2019). The development orientation and path of university cluster construction in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao and Greater Bay Area. Educational Development Research, 11. Zhu, J. (2006). Research on the relationship between CEPA and education in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao. Solicitation, 1, 123–126. Zhu, J. (2009). Discussion on the construction of higher education community in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau. Higher Education Exploration, 6, 77–80.

Chapter 6

Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem in China’s Greater Bay Area: A Correlation Analysis Ke Jin Zhu, Jin Yuan Ma, and Yi Cao

Introduction “The Outline Development Plan of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Greater Bay Area” (the “Plan”) was issued by China’s central government in February, 2019. It has been formulated to strengthen regional synergy through fully leveraging the composite advantages of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao on all-important aspects of economic development, with a distinct principle of “one country, two systems” (Jie et al., 2019). The key concept of the Greater Bay Area proposed by China’s central government is encapsulated in the term “Guangdong—Hong Kong—Macao” rather than the term “Bay Area”; the Plan outlines regional integration, cooperation mechanism innovation, cooperation platform construction, and cross-boundary institutional development (Chen & Lin, 2018). This paper takes a quantitative Pearson correlation approach to examine the correlation between university discipline and industrial structure in the context of regional integration in the Greater Bay Area. It aims to determine the industrial structure deviation, and further identify human resource shortages and complementarity through the lens of university discipline layout in the three regions of the Greater Bay Area, namely, nine mainland Guangdong cities in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, and Macau. K. J. Zhu · J. Y. Ma (B) Center for Higher Education Research, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China e-mail: [email protected] Y. Cao School of System Design and Intelligent Manufacturing, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. H. Mok (ed.), Higher Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Comparative Perspectives, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8870-6_6

139

140

K. J. Zhu et al.

The Plan proposes to shape the Greater Bay Area into a “Talent Bay Area” (Fitzsimons, 2017). Experience of world-class international bay areas shows that accumulation of innovative and entrepreneurial talents is a key driving force for regional economic development (Xiao, 2009). According to human capital theory, human capital is the decisive factor in economic development. Human capital, namely, talents, provide intellectual support for upgrading industrial structure. The competence, type, and quantity of the talents determine the speed of the upgrade (Cui, 2015). In the era of knowledge economy, a fundamental role of higher education demonstrates its correlation with economic development, through human capital development and technology diffusion (Sirbu, 2015). As a significant part of the economic structure, industrial structure reflects the latitude and trends of regional and national economic development. The adjustment of the industrial structure will inevitably bring about changes to the social employment structure, which will in turn affect the demands for human resources in different fields (Lenihan et al., 2019). Cultivating the talents needed for industrial transformation is a basic function of higher education. A regional university discipline structure directly affects the talent structure of various industrial sectors in the region. Only when the above-mentioned two elements are adapted to each other, can regional higher education resources be scientifically allocated. The regional economic development of the Greater Bay Area has raised challenges and demands for corresponding support from regional higher education (Xiao, 2009). However, little is known about the interrelationship between regional higher education and economic development in the Greater Bay Area. This study aimed to enrich the knowledge about this correlation with a specific focus on regional higher education integration. Therefore, the research questions were: What are the correlations between regional university discipline layout and industrial structure in the Greater Bay Area? And what kind of implications can be provided for regional talent flow and sharing? The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: the next section introduces the literature dealing with the correlation between the Chinese higher education discipline layout and the industrial structure at national and provincial levels, as well as studies using comparative and international lenses. This section is followed by an elaboration of the methodology used in this study, including assumptions, data collection, and analysis. The fourth section is a presentation of the results and findings based on correlation analysis; limitations of the study are also presented. The last section concludes with major implications for policy makers and other stakeholders, highlighting the creation of a talent ecosystem in the Greater Bay Area for cross-border integration in a complementary, efficient, and sustainable manner.

6 Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem …

141

Literature Review National-Level Analysis There has been previous research dealing with the correlation between the Chinese higher education discipline layout and the industrial structure at the national level. Cui (2015) used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model to analyze the correlation between China’s university disciplines and industrial structure longitudinally from. The results showed that there is a significant long-term equilibrium relationship between the enrollment ratio of most Chinese university disciplines and the industrial employment structure, except for the discipline of literature; in the case of economics, the enrollment ratio and industrial employment structure are consistent in the long run, but inconsistent in the short term. Yang et al. (2015) used the Euclidean Distance Coordination Model and found that the structural adjustment of China’s university disciplines lags behind the actual needs of industrial structure upgrading; the degree of coordination among sub-disciplines is “polarized”, and the balance of the professional structure of liberal arts and sciences needs to be strengthened. The findings of national-level analysis can provide strategic guidance for the layout of national higher education disciplines. However, it is dangerous to neglect regional imbalances. Guo’s (2014) research emphasized that regional higher education needs to be organized based on the regional industrial structure. The superstructure design of higher education should take account of the regional complementarity of disciplines, professions, and levels from a perspective of regional integration.

Provincial-Level Analysis Most of the empirical research on the relevance of regional higher education disciplines and industrial structure done by Chinese higher education scholars has focused on cases within particular provinces. Wang and Li (2018) used the Grey Relational Analysis Model to analyze the undergraduate universities of Guangdong Province. Wu and Zeng (2015) analyzed adaptation path and influence degree in Jiangxi Province from 1999 to 2012, using Canonical Correlation Analysis, Factor Analysis, and Regression Analysis. The Pearson correlation analysis model has been most frequently adopted. Similar to Wang and Li (2018)’s study, Tang (2015) also focused on undergraduate-level universities in Guangdong, but they extended the higher education and economic analytical variables. Lei (2017) looked into the case of Liaoning Province from 2006 to 2015, while Wang and Wang (2017) took Sichuan Province from 2005 to 2014 as their unit of analysis. Based on the case analyses of various Chinese provinces, it has been generally accepted that agronomy has a strong correlation with primary industries; engineering

142

K. J. Zhu et al.

and science are closely related to secondary industries; and humanities and social sciences, art, medicine, economics, and management are related to tertiary/service industries. The degree of correlation between university discipline and industrial structure varies a lot among different provinces. However, there is a lack of literature clearly indicating the reasons behind these differences. Moreover, the existing studies have not figured out the distinctive roles of higher education and human resources in the process of industrial upgrading in the case provinces. Nevertheless, the literature has reached agreement on how to optimize university discipline structures: first, a market-oriented university discipline adjustment mechanism should be established so that discipline optimization can promote industrial upgrading, and vice versa; second, the government should take the lead on macrocoordination, on-demand layout, classification guidance, and local condition adaptation, while multiple stakeholders should be encouraged to participate; third, the consistency of university, research, industry, and production should be emphasized.

International Case Analysis In general, there is a lack of international literature featuring correlation analysis between university discipline and industrial structure. One reasonable explanation is that university discipline classification in China has strictly adhered to the guidelines and regulations formulated by the Ministry of Education of China (MOE). For instance, the Regulations on Management of Degree-conferring and Disciplinesetting of Talent Cultivation announced by MOE stated that the classification of disciplines should remain relatively stable, and the first-level disciplines could be adjusted every ten years. Thus, compared with countries like the United States where the university discipline organization is much more open and market-oriented (Li & Xie, 2011), the discipline boundaries are stronger and clearer in China, which is more favorable for correlation analysis. Nevertheless, some Chinese scholars have looked at cases in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan to seek international experience instructive to China. Wang et al. (2016) constructed a First-Order Autoregressive Distribution Lag Model and applied it to U.S. university disciplines. They analyzed the impact of the U.S. industrial output structure on the higher education discipline hierarchy from the perspective of expected income. They showed that expected income had the greatest impact on structural changes at the undergraduate level, followed by the doctoral, and then the master’s. It seems that the U.S. university disciplines at different levels have different degrees of adaptability to industrial structure transformation. Liu (2016) used a historical perspective to review the interaction between higher education structural adjustment and industrial transformation in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan after World War II. After examining variables including gross enrollment rate, institutional proportion, degree-level proportion, and disciplinary structure, they reached the conclusion that a number of variables of higher

6 Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem …

143

education are related in varying degrees to industrial structure adjustment in the process of higher education massification and popularization. In summary, there have been empirical studies dealing with the correlation between Chinese higher education discipline layout and industrial structure at the national level. Case analysis has been more popular at the provincial level, and some studies have used a comparative lens to find implications for the Chinese transformation. However, few studies have examined the correlation between higher education discipline layout and industrial structure in the context of the Greater Bay Area, with its emphasis on regional synergy and the distinction of “one country, two systems, and three tariff zones.”

Methodology This study centered on the correlation between regional university discipline layout and industrial structure in the Greater Bay Area. This study applied a quantitative approach based on the following qualitative interpretation. Industrial structure is an important indicator of changes in social demand; in particular, it is the most salient indicator of social demand for different kinds and layers of labor. Changes in industrial structure directly lead to changes in labor demands, namely, employment structure, which in turn affects the number of university enrollments and graduates as a result of changes in wage levels. Firstly, industrial structure influences university discipline structure through the factors of employment and wages; secondly, changes in labor demand result in the emergence of new disciplines and the demise of outdated ones; thirdly, indirect social environmental variables, as intermediate factors of industrial structure, can also bring changes to a university discipline structure. For example, if the cost of applying for a degree in a certain discipline is relatively low, and the application can predict stable income in the future, the resulting increasing number of applicants may result in changes in the discipline (Cui, 2015). On the other hand, university discipline structure affects industrial structure mainly through the supply of human capital: firstly, in a regional context, if the number of university graduates in a certain discipline exceeds the need of the corresponding industrial sector, this may result in a waste of human resources, and conversely, an insufficient supply of talents will be harmful to the sustainable development of that sector; secondly, the quality of university graduates also has an impact on corresponding industrial development; thirdly, the proportion of graduates with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees is also related to the needs of industry, and greatly affects the growth of industrial sectors. Mature and scale-type industries tend to require a large number of laborers with applied knowledge and skills, while emerging leading-edge and high-tech industries call for research-oriented talents who hold master’s or doctoral degrees (Xin & Man, 2016). The data analysis in this study was performed using Pearson’s correlation, which has a small standard error (Gall et al., 2005) and is appropriate for interpreting

144

K. J. Zhu et al.

phenomena in educational contexts (Martella et al., 2013). The predictor variables were percent compositions of GDP by sector, which were chosen to manifest the industrial structure, while the criterion variables were percent compositions of university enrollments by academic programs, which were chosen to represent university discipline layout. In order to increase the credibility and validity of the study, we analyzed the correlation between university discipline and industrial structure layout in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao as three separate regions for the following reasons: (1) the duration availability of original data was different between the three regions (Guangdong: 2004–2016, Hong Kong: 1993–2016, and Macao: 2003–2017); (2) the higher education systems in the three regions are different (Qing & Zhong, 2019), in particular, the university discipline classification in the Chinese Mainland has strong and clear boundaries (Qiong & Qin, 2019), while the boundaries of universities disciplines in Hong Kong and Macao are vaguer; (3) technically, the statistical standards of higher education and industry in the three regions are different.

Assumptions Guangdong There is a statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of primary/secondary/tertiary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment in corresponding disciplines in Guangdong.

Hong Kong1 There is a statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of secondary/tertiary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment in corresponding disciplines in Hong Kong.

Macao2 There is a statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of secondary/tertiary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment in corresponding disciplines in Macao.

1

The percent composition of primary sector GDP in Hong Kong is statistically negligible, so its relationship with the percent composition of university enrollment is not listed. 2 The percent composition of primary sector GDP in Macau is statistically negligible, so its relationship with the percent composition of university enrollment is not listed.

6 Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem …

145

Data Collection As mentioned above, the correlations between university discipline and industrial structure in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao were calculated separately to guarantee the reliability and credibility of the results. For the three industry categories and the corresponding disciplines of each sector, this study followed the classification below to ensure the comparability of the three regions (Table 6.1). To further ensure the reliability of results, credible and consistent data sources were chosen for each data category. Three periods, 2004–2016, 1993–2016, 2003– 2017, were chosen for Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao respectively as a result of the availability of data, especially in terms of enrolments by discipline. First of all, percent compositions of GDP by industry in Guangdong and Hong Kong could be directly retrieved from official databases without secondary calculation. Guangdong’s compositions of GDP by industry from 2004 to 2016 were accessed from the National Bureau of Statistics of China in the Wind Economic Database (as Table 6.1 Classification of industries and corresponding disciplines in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao Industries Corresponding included in sector disciplines of each sector in Guangdong

Corresponding disciplines of each sector in Hong Kong

Corresponding disciplines of each sector in Macao

Agriculture and fishing

N/A

N/A

Secondary sector Industry, mining Science, and quarrying, engineering manufacturing, electricity, gas and water supply, waste management, construction

Science, engineering

Science, engineering

Tertiary sector

Medicine, business and management studies social sciences, law, arts and humanities, education

Teacher training and education, arts, humanities, social and behavioral science, journalism and information, business and administration, law, health, social services, personal services

Primary sector

Services (Finance, real estate, hotels and catering, leasing and business, wholesale and retail trade, transport, education, health care and social work, culture, sports and recreation, etc.)

Agronomy

Medicine, economics, business and management studies, law, arts and humanities, education, philosophy, history

Sources Authors’ own design based on information retrieved from Guangdong Education Yearbook, Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics, Macau Yearbook of Statistics

146

K. J. Zhu et al.

shown in Fig. 6.1). Compositions of GDP by industry in Hong Kong from 1993 to 2016 were gathered from the “Percentage contribution to Gross Domestic Product by economic activity” section of the Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics (1994–2017) (as shown in Fig. 6.2). As for Macao, the percent compositions of GDP by industry were calculated by the authors based on GDP by industry data from 2003 to 2007 collected from the Statistics and Census Bureau of Macau in the Wind Economic Database (as shown in Fig. 6.3). This was done because the “Industrial Structure at Current Producers’ Prices” section of the Macau Yearbook of Statistics did not cover the years from 2003 to 2017 consistently. Secondly, percent compositions of university enrollment by discipline in Guangdong from 2004 to 2016 were directly extracted from the Guangdong Education Yearbook (2005–2017) (as shown in Fig. 6.4). For Hong Kong, the percent compositions

Fig. 6.1 Present composition of GDP by industry (Guangdong) (Source The National Bureau of Statistics of China in the Wind Economic Database)

Fig. 6.2 Present composition of GDP by industry (Hong Kong) (Source Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics [1994–2017])

6 Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem …

147

Fig. 6.3 Present composition of GDP by industry (Macau) (Source The Statistics and Census Bureau of Macau in the Wind Economic Database)

Fig. 6.4 Composition of enrollments in university by discipline (Guangdong) (Source Guangdong Education Yearbook [2005–2017])

of UGC-funded university enrollment by discipline from 1993 to 2016 were calculated based on data from the “Enrollment in UGC-funded university by academic programs” section of the Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics (1994–2017) (as shown in Fig. 6.5). Finally, the percent compositions of university enrollment by discipline from 2003 to 2017 were also calculated for Macao based on the “Students Enrolled in Higher Education” section of the Macao Yearbook of Statistics (2003–2017) (as shown in Fig. 6.6).

148

K. J. Zhu et al.

Fig. 6.5 Composition of enrollments in UGC-funded university by discipline (Hong Kong) (Source Authors’ own calculation based on data retrieved from the Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics [1994–2017])

Fig. 6.6 Percent composition of enrollments in university by discipline (Macau) (Source Authors’ own calculation based on data retrieved from the Macao Yearbook of Statistics [2003–2017])

6 Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem …

149

Correlation Analysis To begin with, the magnitude and significance of the correlation of percent composition of GDP by industry and percent composition of university enrollment by discipline were considered to be useful in that the two variables indicated the industrial structure and university discipline layout in the Greater Bay Area respectively. This allowed the authors to analyze the advantages and problems of the university discipline settings from the perspective of industry structure. Moreover, the two variables of interest were measured using ratio scales and met the assumptions of normal distribution and linearity (Martella et al., 2013) essential for applying Pearson correlation analysis. In addition, after the assumption tests underlying the Pearson correlation had been carried out with a p value of less than 0.05 to confirm their validity, the value of the correlation coefficient (r) could be interpreted with some degree of confidence. While the sign of an r value indicates whether the direction of a relationship between two variables is either positive or negative, the absolute value of r indicates the magnitude and strength of the relationship. When the absolute value of r is closer to 1.00, the interrelation between the two variables is stronger (see Table 6.2). This study utilized SAS University Edition software to support correlation analysis of the variables. Last but not least, the null hypotheses developed on the basis of the assumptions in this study were as follow: H01 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of primary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Guangdong. H02 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of secondary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Guangdong. H03 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of tertiary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Guangdong. H04 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of secondary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Hong Kong. Table 6.2 Interpretation of correlation coefficient

Strength of correlation

Negative

Positive

Very strong

−1.0 to −0.8

0.8 to 1.0

Strong

−0.8 to −0.6

0.6 to 1.0

Moderate

−0.6 to −0.4

0.4 to 0.6

Weak

−0.4 to −0.2

0.2 to 0.4

None or very weak

−0.2 to 0.0

0.0 to 0.2

150

K. J. Zhu et al.

H05 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of tertiary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Hong Kong. H06 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of secondary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Macao. H07 There is no statistically significant relationship between the percent composition of tertiary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollment for corresponding disciplines in Macao.

Results and Findings Results Guangdong The percent composition of primary sector GDP and the percent composition of university enrollments for the corresponding discipline, namely Agronomy, were not significantly correlated (see Table 6.3). Therefore, the null hypothesis one (H01) was accepted. The other two sectors, however, both exhibited a positive correlation when the researchers took their corresponding disciplines as a whole (see Tables 6.4 and 6.5). In this case, H02 and H03 were rejected. More precisely, the strength of the correlation between the secondary sector GDP and corresponding disciplines’ enrollments was moderate. Furthermore, if the corresponding disciplines of the secondary sector were divided into Science and Engineering, university enrollment for each Table 6.3 Correlations of percent compositions of GDP for the primary sector industry and percent compositions of university enrollments in the corresponding discipline in Guangdong Correlations of percent compositions of GDP for the primary sector industry and

r

p value

Significant (0.05 level)

Percent compositions of university enrollments for the corresponding discipline (Agronomy)

−0.03648

0.9058

No

Strength

Positive or negative

6 Higher Education and Talent Ecosystem …

151

Table 6.4 Correlations of percent compositions of GDP for secondary sector industries and percent compositions of university enrollments in corresponding disciplines in Guangdong Correlations of percent compositions of GDP for secondary sector industries and

r

p value

Significant (0.05 level)

Strength

Positive or negative

Percent compositions of university enrollments for corresponding disciplines

0.57571

0.0395

Yes

Moderate

Positive

Percent compositions of university enrollments in Science

−0.31929

0.2876

No

Percent compositions of university enrollments in Engineering

0.43446

0.1379

No

discipline was even not significantly correlated with the secondary sector’s GDP (see Table 6.4). Similarly, the disciplines corresponding to tertiary sector industries comprised seven individual disciplines. One of them (Humanities) demonstrated a very strong positive correlation and two of them (Economics and management studies and History) were moderately and positively correlated, while the Education discipline exhibited a very strong negative correlation. In these circumstances, H03 was rejected for five disciplines but accepted for two disciplines.

Hong Kong The percent composition of GDP for the secondary and tertiary sectors both were strongly and positively correlated with the percent composition of university enrollments in their corresponding disciplines as a whole (see Tables 6.6 and 6.7). In particular, both corresponding disciplines in the secondary sector demonstrated a strong positive correlation (see Table 6.6). Thus, H04 was fully rejected. As for the corresponding disciplines in the tertiary sector, four of them exhibited a correlation, but two of them were not significantly correlated. Humanities and Education both showed a strong positive correlation. Medicine exhibited a very strong positive correlation while Economics and business management studies unexpectedly indicated a

152

K. J. Zhu et al.

Table 6.5 Correlations of percent compositions of GDP for tertiary sector industries and percent compositions of university enrollments in corresponding disciplines in Guangdong Correlations of percent compositions of GDP for tertiary sector industries and

r

p value

Significant (0.05 level)

Strength

Positive or negative

Percent compositions of university enrollments for corresponding disciplines

0.60081

0.0299

Yes

Strong

Positive

Percent compositions of university enrollments in Economics and Management Studies

0.59695

0.0312

Yes

Moderate

Positive

Percent compositions of university enrollments in Medicine

−0.44998

0.1229

No

Percent compositions of university enrollments in Humanities

0.88351