Lit Review Blog #3

Marginson, Simon . “The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems.” The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems, 2 June 2016.

Marginson speaks about the to increase in high participation systems over the years and analyzes the countries that implement HPS. This system has slowly spread to middle to low-income countries and has shown that the main drive for higher education in less affluent families is for social mobility.

Simon Marginson is a professor of international higher education at UCL Institute of Education and joint editor-in-chief for the journal, "Higher Education". He is highly qualified and knowledgeable about the topic of higher education.

Social stratification: society groups people by occupation, income, wealth, status, power.
Educational equality :everyone having access to education and also being able to take advantage of it regardless of social class.

"the payoffs to mass higher education are unclear, and empirical evidence for human capital style decision-making, such as the use of rates of return data, is weak" (418)

“The HPS trend increases the pool of graduates but does not increase the number of high value social outcomes that graduates can reach, which is determined by relations of social power and equality/inequality beyond education. " (421)

"Universities that are already older, established and wealthy enter new competitions for resources with prominent alumni networks, sizeable endowments, favorable locations, and strategic corporate ties’" (425)


This piece will give me value in my research because it discusses how private institutions are “engines of social advantage” and about how those who were matriculated into most Ivy Leagues were from the top 10 percent of families based by income. Some students, particularly low income students, only choose safe choices and applied to less selective colleges. Because of this, the stratified system creates inequality. This gives a contrast to the Nordic education model where education is equal and free for everyone.