Economics of Education and Prospective Developments in Higher Education

Dear Colleagues,

Education is seen as an element of human capital and one of the essential influencing factors that can determine how an economy grows and develops. This is because educated workers can more efficiently perform tasks that require literacy, critical thinking, and technological skills and can therefore improve a country’s productivity and competitive advantages. When the economy continuously and steadily develops and grows, we will have a sustainable future. Therefore, any education systems, training, approaches, and government education policies will indirectly or directly affect a nation’s economic development and, therefore, impact whether or not we have a sustainable future. 

In addition, since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and due to modern technology, online classes have been widely offered by universities and colleges all around the world as an important and popular instructional mode. Online classes provide numerous advantages for students (including more flexibility and cost-effective learning) and thus provide significant contributions to student enrollment and university revenues. Nevertheless, online classes also offer various disadvantages (including isolation, lack of face-to-face interaction, difficulty staying motivated, and online cheating) that have had significant negative impacts on the knowledge and higher education market. These positive and negative impacts will influence prospective developments in higher education and can therefore affects future economic development. For this reason, it is extremely important that researchers, educators, and policy makers study this issue. 

Therefore, this Special Issue consists of articles that investigate and discuss how education (especially higher education) plays an important role in a nation’s economic development; how higher education will develop and transform in the future, with modern technology; and how its development and transformation could influence a nation’s future economic development, as well as how university authorities, educators, and government policy makers address this issue and develop policies.  

Authors working in different disciplines, such as economics, education, social science, public policy, and other disciplines related to economics and higher education issues, are invited to submit their papers. Theoretical and empirical research articles are welcome in this Special Issue. However, even in studies that are not theoretical or empirical, authors are expected to provide economic, theoretical, or empirical models, and economic analysis, in addition to educational analysis.  

I look forward to receiving your marvelous contributions. 

Prof. Dr. Tin-Chun Lin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• economics of education
• education and economic development
• sustainable development
• human capital
• higher education
• online education
• higher education and labor markets
• the role of government in education
• taxation for education
• financing education