Introduction
It has become commonplace to note that one prominent feature of contemporary globalization is the âspeeding up of changeâ (Harvey 1989). We find evidence of this assertion throughout social life and particularly in those portions of social interactions being impacted by new information and communication technologies. A companion assertion holds that education in general and higher education in particular are stressed by what is familiarly termed the âalignment dilemmaâ by which is usually meant the lack of fit between the kinds of education and skills required in contemporary economies and those possessed by higher education graduates. We have discussed this issue in various other places (e.g. in a senior seminar held in Shanghai in November 2013 on twenty-first-century work skills and competencies, see Neubauer and Ghazali 2015). We have also noted that the âdisruptionâ movement in higher education takes form in part as an expression of this tension (in this regard, see Christensen et al. 2011). In the main, discussion along these lines has focused on undergraduate education.
The chapters that appear in this volume have been derived from a researcherâs seminar held at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in March 2014. These offerings examine a range of propositions focused on the changing nature of graduate education. Our purpose in offering these is to create a frame of reference through which graduate education can be examined in relation to the many functions and purposes it has performed in society as well as to initiate an assessment of other developments that arise within graduate education as a result of the many more general transformations occurring in higher education, especially in the Asia Pacific region.
Some Contemporary Trends
The following is intended as an introductory set of observations about graduate education as it has been increasingly affected and transformed by the processes of contemporary globalization in which it is variously located.
Interdisciplinarity in MA and PhD dissertations is rising worldwide, especially in the Asia Pacific. The key assumption underlying the investments many higher education institutions (HEIs) are making in transdisciplinary research centers and training programs is âthat cross-disciplinary research and training provide a stronger basis for achieving scientific and societal advances than unidisciplinary programsâ (Mitrany and Stokois 2005).These events play out against another set of variables often mentioned in the context of higher education, namely, the relative difficulty of instigating change within HEIs given the dominant role played in university structure and administration by traditional disciplines and many professional schools (Trowler 1998).
Running throughout higher education is an increased focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduate work, especially in Asia (ICEF Monitor 2012). Throughout the world one can observe a steadily increasing awareness that societal needs, especially those expressed through innovation derived from technological advance, are occurring most rapidly in STEM fields, and that in terms of both employability and the value-added component of higher education and graduate education, qualification in STEM fields is increasingly important as well. This awareness is very strong in Asia (especially in India, Korea, Singapore, and China), and it is widely recognized throughout the world that Asian students in general outperform others in STEM-related testing at pre-graduate levels. (For an overall assessment of STEM issues throughout education and society in addition to cross-country comparisons and their graduate education implications, see Marginson et al. 2013.)
In general, one can observe an increase in international competition for the best students at both graduate and undergraduate levels. One feature of internationalization/globalization is that in their operation, the higher education dynamics they have occasioned have generally favored the West at the expense of HEIs in Asia and the Pacific (A&P). This was represented over the decades from 1980 to 2005 by the radical imbalance of Asian countries sending cross-border students out for their experiences, especially in graduate education. This is beginning to change, as A&P HEIs get stronger and enter new stages of massification (Enders and Jongbloed 2007; Hawkins and Wu 2015).
As indicated above, a major issue in all of the tertiary education is workforce misalignment with fields of study, which is becoming increasingly an issue in graduate education. Indeed, in some instances doctoral programs are subject to intense criticism because of their length and cost and the difficulties experienced by graduates in seeking employment upon completing their degrees. In the USA, this has become an increasing critique of higher education as the proportion of teaching/research faculty hired on tenure track drops and that of contract faculty increasesâthe result being a âpoor return on investmentâ in doctoral education. These dynamics in linking graduate education to workforce alignment are enhanced in an A&P context (Asian Development Bank 2012; Luzer 2013; Kezar 2013).
Another aspect of these dynamics has been the relative increase in the cost of higher education throughout the world and the related tendency to shift increasing portions of that cost on students through increases in tuition, with the result that in many instances they âownâ significant amounts of debt upon receiving their degrees. In the USA this has become a major political issue with aggregate student debt having reached a trillion dollars plus. The phenomenon is intensified when associated with graduate degrees, which on the whole costs more than undergraduate degrees. Again, this is a phenomenon that has begun to expand rapidly throughout Asia as more governments reduce their contributions to both undergraduate and graduate education, and as the role of private education looms larger (Rowan 2013).
In recent years, the public policy sector in various countries has become increasingly involved in promoting closer collaboration between HEIs, employers, and the public service realm to increase the alignment between HE and work. This phenomenon is just beginning to occur in Asia, and with a gradual realization that the issue in general extends to graduate education, but because of the persistence of the issue, one can expect an increase in the reach and rate of these endeavors (Asia Society 2011). In the USA and in a manner that may stand as a prediction for how the process will extend to other countries as well, the economic and status dilemmas facing recent graduates motivate many of them to extend their work to graduate education. In this regard, in recent years the most rapidly growing segment of US higher education has been at the MA level. Joshua A. Boldt, for example, has developed a variety of analyses of higher education focused on elements of political economy from which he argues that the relative dearth of post-BA employment contributes in a focused way to the expansion of graduate education as the expansion of MA and PhD education serves to absorb excess labor (Boldt 2013).
Regional cooperation is intensifying for graduate work within the Asia Pacific region. This has strong implications for non-Asian dominance of the best graduate students. One can advance the hypothesis that as Asian HE improves, and the relatively new and distinctive âeducation hubsâ develop (as in Singapore and Malaysia), the best students will stay in the region, thus depriving traditional recipient nations of talented human resources (Vincent-Lancrin 2009, Cheng et al. 2011).
Some years ago Bigalke offered the proposition that when seeking to compare events that occur in US higher education with various sites in A&P, one can see that in some cases the US events act as a forerunner of similar developments that will occur in Asia; in other cases the US experience can be seen as an outlier, a series of events that have taken the form and shape they have largely because of structural features that are unique to the US, such as the fact that most higher education is authorized and regulated at the state level, not the national level as is most common in Asia (Bigalke 2009). However, even as outliers, as the largest economy in the world and as one that is situated firmly in the center of globalization dynamics, such events are often forerunners.
In this regard, The Path Forward for Graduate Education in the US 2010 is a good summary of where graduate education is going in the US, and as such perhaps a harbinger for the rest of the world, Asia especially (Education Testing Service 2012). Specifically this report makes the following recommendations, after setting a context in which both the continued importance of higher education is emphasized as well as the probability that the current models through which graduate education is financed are not sustainable. These are to:
- improve completion rates
- clarify career pathways for graduate students
- prepare future faculty
- prepare future professionals
- establish and expand programs to identify talented undergraduate students.
Mindful of the persistence of the alignment dilemma, the report also makes recommendations to employers to:
- establish endowed graduate school chairs
- promote lifelong learning accounts
- provide tuition reimbursement accounts for graduate study
- replicate established programs that address challenges facing underrepresented groups
- create industry-sponsored graduate fellowship programs
- create special incentives for small businesses to develop talent
- collaborate with universities to clarify entry points into careers
- provide internships and work-study programs for graduate students.
Diploma Disease (Credentialization)
In 1976, Ronald Dore published a study called âThe Diploma Diseaseâ in which he argued, âthe âbureaucratization of economic lifeâ in all modern societies is making selection for jobs/careers by educational attainment more and more universal.â From this he argued that one could predict the flow of âcredentializationâ throughout an economy, for which the primary indicator was the university degree. At the time he was most concerned about Associate and Bachelor degrees. In this volume, in various ways we seek to extend aspects of his analyses to graduate education, arguing in some instances that for many purposes the MA is the new BA, leading to most of the consequences Dore foresaw: credentialism, a lack of alignment, the privileging of the symbolic value of graduate degrees, and so forth. In various chapters that follow, we can see a form of analysis, a kind of âback to the futureâ phenomenon in Asia in which graduate degrees are progressively displacing even BA/BS degrees as occupational requirements. Some (e.g. in Australia) have even begun to argue that this phenomenon is beginning to attach to the PhD as well (Collins 2002).
In some respects, a phenomenon linked to the kinds of structures and processes that lead to diploma disease is the finding leveled by some that the training doctoral students receive is not necessarily what they want, nor does it prepare them for the jobs they take (Walker et al. 2008). In the USA, for example, the âCarnegie Initiative on the Doctorateâ has generated extensive active and continuing conversations on the purpose of given doctoral programs and the rationale and educational purpose of each element of the program, conversations that are being employed to transform many US doctoral programs. In addition, Walker et al. (2008) performed much of the work for this project and reported on it in a separate volume. Among other points made is the important assertion that many students do not clearly understand what doctoral study entails, how the process works, and/or how to navigate it effectively. These findings, initially derived from a US study, appear to be replicated by Asia Survey results (Nyquist and Woodford 2000).
Satisfaction with Graduate Education Is Strongly Linked to Choice
A number of studies have indicated that students desire graduate curricula that are sufficiently broad to give them a choice of careers. They also want information to ensure that the choices they are making are informed, and they want the choices they make to be respected by others, and particularly by the market.
For example, a 2010 survey of graduate students (including MA, PhD, and Professional students) at the University of California, Berkeley, found that, in general, graduate students highly recommend their program, but doctoral students are likely to be less positive in their recommendation as they progress through the program. The quality of the mentor was the most important factor in determining whether the program was viewed positively. And in this particular instance graduate students were very much aware of the decrease in general public funding for graduate education and doctoral education in particular (Bowling Green State University 2007, Graduate Asse...