Higher Education in the Year 2025

The supply of higher education is a function of ever changing uncontrollable factors, i.e., technology, economic conditions of country, political system, cultural forces, etc. Thus, I believe, most I can do is to explore potential results of incentives generated by current policies for shifts in higher education. What would happen in future would be a function of infusion of technology in delivery of education and role economic and political forces would play in delivery of education. For example, if we exclude a certain sector, say, women, from getting education in a certain country or a region, a large portion of that population would be excluded. Similarly, if we decide that we do not wa nt for-profit-institutions to play a role in delivery of education, speed of expansion of education sector would be much slower. Similarly a country may decide to invest heavily and expand education programs. A case in point, in China technology doctoral degrees went up from a little less than 2,000 in 1994-95 to close to 10,000 by mid-2000s (MOE, 2011a).The higher education structure would, thus, be a function of impact of incentives generated and actions taken in response to those incentives on both demand and supply side of higher education. Changes in higher education sector have been very fast in many countries, including India and China. In this paper, we start with how education is perceived, followed by changes in higher education in general, especially in India, followed by a discussion of potential changes that higher education sector may experience.INTRODUCTIONResearchers like Philip W Jackson have spent their whole lives in answering question and writing book, What is Education? According to Jackson, the fundamental goal of education: making students as well as teachers-and therefore everyone-better (Jackson, 2011). Broadly speaking, definition of education varies between Inculcation of civic and social duties, promotion of social efficiency and preservation and spread of national culture (as defined in Education in Ancient India) to a statement in reference to Sudan by one of new country's founding fathers, Dr. John Garang, that i t is through education that people and countries build skills needed to strengthen self-reliance, expand choices, and create shared prosperity(United Nations Educational, Education For All Global Monitoring Report 2011). Thus, education, even with a focus on a certain field, is meant for broadening mind of person.Education, thus, has been understood as something in between. I start with discussion of what is education, e.g., broad objective of education is to make every person a better person. Even though it includes information about a particular discipline, it is much broader than just teaching a particular discipline or a particular skill. Later is what is calling training, and is different from education in sense that it is much narrower than broad education and while it helps a person perform a specific task, it does not help a person look at a problem from a broader perspective. This type of knowledge is generally imparted in vocational or community colleges.Traditionally, universities focused on former and training programs on latter. However, in recent years, with entry of for-profit institutions and a desire to produce individuals who, so to speak, can hit ground running, universities started incorporating use of population software in their education programs. This was speeded up with grants by software companies that gave their software for either free or at a highly discounted price to educational institutions. Once this was introduced, some universities started giving credit for programs completed at training institutions for coursework at universities. For example, students who complete GNNIT certification by NIIT, a prominent computer training organization in India, after completing an undergraduate degree, get credit for a year of coursework toward a master's degree at some recognized universities in India and some universities in United Kingdom (International Baccalaureate, 2012). …