Higher Education in Crisis

Some Lessons from Finland and West Germany 1960-1970

Bibliographic Data

ID12944100
AuthorsMatias Gardin (0000-0001-6239-8024, University of Luxembourg, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume11
Issue2
Publication date2015-05-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary European Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1815-347X • E-ISSN: 1815-347X
PublisherUACES (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.30950/jcer.v11i2.622
OpenAlexW1511497855
LanguageEN
References cited16

In today’s overpowering neoliberal dogma, the written media often renders strong economic developments and generous welfare state policies as incompatible. At a European level, the recent economic and financial crisis has worryingly reinforced this trend, exemplified by strategic cuts in higher education funding in the majority of EU member states. This article takes the present European crisis as its point of departure, and by drawing on the example of post-war higher education expansion in Finland and West Germany, it argues that crisis can provide beneficial insights into the causes, capacities, forms, and mechanisms of change in current capitalist economies under increased austerity. This analysis thereby condemns the alleged incompatibility of economic growth and egalitarianism, and concludes by suggesting – as was also implied by the Finnish and West German press of the 1960s – that investment in human capital via education needs to be maintained and increased to facilitate the EU member states out of the economic crisis

Austerity · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic policy · Economics · Economy · European union · Financial crisis · Geography · German · Human capital · Keynesian economics · Member states · Political economy · Political science · Politics · State (computer science · Welfare state · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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