Inequality scholarship has long highlighted the role of education, including higher education, in both mobility processes and the reproduction of disadvantage. This article, drawing on a unique sample of nearly 22,000 undergraduate students in Israel, builds on and extends this body of work by analyzing the extent to which double majoring in…

Over the decades, higher education has markedly expanded worldwide. Alongside its trajectory, scholars have investigated how such high participation systems (HPS) affect social stratification, with close attention to (in)equality in educational opportunities and heterogeneous/declining returns to tertiary degrees. While HPS have thus been the…

In this article, I examine the educational purposes of higher education in terms of the societal outcomes of educating students through higher education. Based on an analysis of the first 80 volumes of "Higher Education," published from 1972 to 2020, I argue that discussions of societal educational purposes were dominated by authors from…

We contribute to research on social inequalities in educational attainment by examining the role of institutional contexts for students' study abroad (SA) intent and participation. To do so, we extend the individual-level rational choice model predicting SA intent and participation depending on students' socioeconomic status (SES) into a…

More and more European higher education students decide to take part in international student mobility (ISM). However, not much is known about the actual benefits of studying abroad. This paper assesses UK and Italian students' returns from ISM. Three research questions are addressed. First, does international student mobility increase graduates'…

Widening participation (WP) in Higher Education (HE) is often positioned as key to resolving social inequality; it underpins arguments that increasing levels of education lead to reduced levels of poverty. Located within the tension of duty and need, WP is positioned as both the responsibility of the University and a financial imperative. This…

While many papers have focused on socially unequal admissions in higher education, this paper looks at the persistence of class differentials after enrolment. I examine the social class gap in bachelor's programme dropout and in the transition from bachelor's to master's in Denmark from the formal introduction of the bachelor's degree in 1993 up…

Studying abroad can positively influence students' personality development, transversal skills, and labour market outcomes. At the same time, students from a high social origin are more likely to study abroad than students from a low social origin. Against this background, recent research has suggested that international student mobility (ISM) may…

A worldwide trend towards high levels of participation in higher education, paired with concerns about the post-university destinations of an increasing pool of graduates, have brought about two parallel phenomena: a process of sharp stratification in higher education and the growing relevance of postgraduate education as undergraduate study…

This paper analyzes the development of social inequality in the Polish higher education system during its expansion after 1990 using data from the Polish General Social Survey. Focusing on the special case of a former socialist society, where higher education expansion has been very rapid and achieved mainly through marketization, this paper…

Drawing on a review of international higher education (IHE) policies, priorities, and literature from the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK over the course of a 16-year period (2000-2016), this article identifies a strong scholarly and policy preoccupation with the urgency of the global knowledge economy and cognate discourses of 'Asia Pacific…

Since devolution of education policy to the four 'home' nations of the UK, distinct approaches to addressing social inequalities in higher education participation have developed across the four jurisdictions (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). From a critical examination of 12 policy documents, this paper presents a comparative policy…

The purpose of this study was to explore geographic mobility among university students in Peru and to understand how mobility patterns differ by region and by demographic indicators of inequality. The ways that students may be able to move geographically in order to access quality higher education within the educational system can be a driver of…

This study extends Boudon's positional theory to understand how students from different social origins make choices about university and how they interpret risks during the choice-making process in contemporary China. I draw upon empirical evidence from 71 in-depth semi-structured interviews with undergraduates from different social backgrounds…

This paper directs attention to important changes in the role and funding of elite private universities in the USA. At the center of these changes is the private endowment--an institution that has for much of its history been a pivotal element of innovation and autonomy, but which is recently tilting towards the production and reproduction of…