The impact of middle class and open university graduates in Thailand on its economy

Abstract

Numerous attempts have been made so far by scholars to demonstrate the positive role of the two open universities in Thailand, namely, Ramkhamhaeng University (RU) and Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU), in its miraculous economic growth for the last thirty years. What is lacking, however, is a comparative study between these open universities and traditional universities with high social valuation, based on relevant numerical data. The objectives of this research are: (1) to grasp why students go to open/traditional universities and how they see the universities{7f2019} quality of education, (2) to describe the social status of RU and STOU graduates in comparison with graduates of Chulalongkorn University (CU), and (3) to find out if higher education at RU and STOU is a good investment. Questionnaires used in a survey of 972 graduates from the Faculty of Business, Law, Economics, and Political Science of the three universities named aboveincluded questions about: (1) university-choice behavior, (2) quality of education, and (3) financial situation such as beginning and current salary, both of which are the crucial indicators to determine the social status of graduates. For university-choice behavior, results of the study indicated that, while CU graduates liked the university mostly because of its reputation, social status and third-party recommendations, open university graduates chose their universities because of the unique characteristics as open universities such as open admission systems, reasonable tuition, and compatibility of work and study. With respect to the quality of education, contrary to common belief, according to the perception of the respondents, open university graduates give higher scores to the education for life/working philosophy and team work provided by RU and STOU than CU graduates, although there is not much difference for other categories. A comparison of the financial situation or social status of the graduatesindicated that, although there were significant differences in beginning and current salaries for the middle and younger generations and CU graduates earn more than those of RU and STOU, there were no differences for the senior generation, according to a faculty-wise comparison between different types of universities, both at the time of graduation and at the present moment. Therefore, one can safely say that RU and STOU have succeeded in generating middle class people just like CU, the top traditional university in Thailand. From an examination of investment efficiency, based on an internal rate of return analysis, it is clear that it was a good investment to go to open universities.