Toward 2030: Inequities in Higher Education Access in Southeast Asia

Lin Wai Phyo () and Sonia Ilie
Additional contact information
Lin Wai Phyo: Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK
Sonia Ilie: Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK

Social Sciences, 2025, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-22

Abstract: The Sustainable Development Goals have galvanized efforts to improve access to higher education globally. While higher education has expanded over the last decade, access inequities endure, with economic deprivation, gender, and other dimensions of marginalization shaping individual opportunities to engage with higher education. Regional differences have also emerged, with some higher education systems growing at a rapid pace, driven by a variety of policy initiatives. This paper explores higher education access inequities in the Southeast Asian context, where a period of rapid higher education expansion has recently given way to complex patterns of access, against diverging national directions for higher education development. Using large-scale nationally representative data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), this paper traces patterns of inequitable higher education access in eight Southeast Asian countries over time. This paper then discusses country-specific policy initiatives, and the levers they deploy in trying to lower higher education inequities. It explores how these country-specific policy initiatives aiming at equality or equity in higher education access sit alongside periods of sector expansion and wealth-based gaps in higher education access, to conclude about potential policy shifts which may support work towards more equitable systems.

Keywords: higher education access; inequity; wealth disparities; Southeast Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/10/592/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/10/592/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:14:y:2025:i:10:p:592-:d:1764924

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().