Changes in an age of mass higher education

Abstract

This study offers an overview of the main theoretical discussions about how the increasing phenomenon higher education massification meets the needs of an emerging economy in post-industrial societies. Based on the decomposition of the concept of social change in several frames of analysis, the study synthesizes how individual life is unstandardized in the context of risk society (Beck) and late modernity (Bauman). The study continues to analyze the social changes occurring in the age of mass higher education in relation to the transition of young people, with a special focus on the professional dimension, the shifts on the tertiary education system and its labour market effects. In a broader perspective, the theoretical analysis underlies the debate about the persistence of social inequality through higher education. Placed at the crossroads between sociology of education and social mobility, the paper wants to capture the extent to which higher education universalization manages the social change, which, in turn, accelerates the economic growth and technological development. Considering that the extension of education not only changed the number of those educated, but it created qualitative changes through social groups, in terms of composition and structure, due to increased selectivity in the labour market. The aim is to show how the new route that young people must travel from school to work is designed, under the pressures of a globalized labor market, and under the impact of an increasing educational homogeneity.