Definitions and Origins
Mass higher education is a term used in both a precise and a loose sense. The precise sense refers to the middle stage of the tripartite typology of higher education systems devised by the American sociologist Martin Trow. Systems that enrolled up to 15 per cent of secondary/high school leavers he defined as elite systems. Systems enrolling between 15 per cent and 50 per cent were mass systems, while those enrolling more than 50 per cent Trow defined as universal systems (Trow 1970, 1973). When he wrote, only the American system was approaching the boundary between mass and universal stages; others had only recently evolved from being elite to become mass systems. Half a century later the pattern is very different. There are now many examples of universal systems, although they do not necessarily exhibit the characteristics assumed by Trow. Some higher education systems, notably in East Asia, now have...
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Scott, P. (2016). Mass Higher Education. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_12-1
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