Ritið : tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar - 01.01.2011, Page 75

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A B S T R A C T
University bubble?
On the supply and popularity of educational programmes
in an era of prosperity
This article poses the question whether the changes in the Icelandic economy and
job market, from the 1990s onwards, stimulated a certain kind of expansion in
Icelandic higher education that mimicked the logic of the economic bubble that
eventually led to the crash of 2008. The point here is not to draw up a step-by-
step analysis of how this may have happened, but rather to provoke a questioning
of the current shape of Icelandic higher education and how fit it may be for the
needs of post-2008 rebuilding and an emerging discourse of Icelandic entrepre-
neurship in which information and communication technologies, software, and
gaming have featured prominently. In 2008, Icelandic graduates from tertiary
education (ISCED 5 and 6) clustered in the social sciences, business and law,
along with education, and this clustering persists in more recent figures on stu-
dent registrations. The question is whether this concentration indicates a struc-
tural bias towards the social sciences, business and law. Does Icelandic HE, by way
of that bias, still retain the shape of the job market as it was in the bubble, the
ghostly outlines of a vanished prosperity?
Keywords: Higher education, policy, crash of 2008, public good, private invest-
ment, social science, business, law.
HÁSKÓLABÓLA?