Two Paths to Mass Higher Education: Issues and Outcomes in Belgium and France. Yale Higher Education Research Group Working Paper.

Overview & Synopsis

The patterns of development of mass higher education in France and Belgium are compared. Student enrollment data, governmental measures taken to meet needs, and effects of the action within higher education are examined. Results of mass higher education in terms of its principal expectations and future prospects are also analyzed. France and Belgium are eighth and ninth respectively in the rate of increase in higher education from 1950 to 1965. In France the transition to mass higher education has led to a complete restructuring of the predominant sector of higher education, and the process is even now incomplete. Belgium has made this transition without significant alterations in the basic structure of its institutions. The cases of the two countries offer some suggestive material about the social consequences of different forms of system organizational structure in higher education. (SW)