Working Paper #2008-22 - THE ORGANIZATION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION: SOME PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON A DECENTRALIZED SYSTEM

Department of Economics
University of Delaware
Working Paper #2008-22

THE ORGANIZATION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION:  SOME PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON A DECENTRALIZED SYSTEM

Jeffrey B. Miller

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to address a fundamental question about higher education. If a country wanted to design a system of higher education, what would the optimal institutional structure of the system look like? This question is very broad so we limit our initial approach by analyzing one aspect of this question and ask how well a decentralized higher education system will perform. This paper is preliminary and does not provide an answer to this question; rather it attempts to lay out a framework for thinking about this question using existing systems, principally the US, as a model for how such a system would work.

JEL Codes: P10, L10, L33, L89

Keywords: higher education, rankings, organization of higher education