Page 35 - UNAM-GCUB2022

ones maybe even more important than the pandemic—which
our societies and higher education are facing: climate change,
growing migration pressures, anti-global populism and natio-
nalism, access and equity gaps, funding of (higher) educa-
tion, threats to academic freedom, and increasing inequality
between the Global North and the Global South and between
the top research universities and the rest of higher education,
to mention just some key ones”, and concluded: “Addressing
these major challenges is essential for higher education to
prepare for the future of international higher education.” (De
Wit and Altbach, 2023).
Higher education has experienced a dramatic expan-
sion in the past half-century. Massification has changed the
reality of postsecondary education everywhere. At the same
time, the global knowledge economy has turned higher edu-
cation and research into a key player in the economic realm.
Issues such as autonomy and academic freedom, reputation/
rankings/excellence programs, digitalization and the changing
economic and political climate are some of the key factors that
have come to the forefront in defining the current and future
situation of higher education, post pandemic. And in all this
international dimensions of higher education are central.

Massification

During the past seven decades, the higher education lands-
cape has changed dramatically. Once the privilege of an eli-
te, gross enrollment ratios (GER) in postsecondary education
have soared to more than 50 percent in many countries—rea-
ching 90 percent in a few. There are more than 260 million stu-
dents globally in more than 20,000 postsecondary institutions,
focusing on every possible specialization. Massification is a
key phenomenon in much of the world. Emerging economies,
including China, India, and in Latin America (with GERs of 35–
40 percent, 20–25 percent and 40–50 percent, respectively),
are expanding their enrollment rates toward 50 percent or

35