Programme Choice Under Uncertainty: Field of Study Shifts in Türkiye, 2010 to 2025
48th Annual EAIR Forum 2026, Vilniaus, Litvanya, 26 - 28 Ağustos 2026, (Özet Bildiri)
- Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
- Basıldığı Şehir: Vilniaus
- Basıldığı Ülke: Litvanya
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Higher education institutions operate as open systems that respond to social, economic, and political environments rather than remaining isolated (Ballantine, 1989). In that respect, human capital perspectives within economics of education frame higher education expansion as a pathway to both individual returns and wider societal benefits (Toutkoushian and Paulsen, 2016). However, in periods of increasing uncertainty, public and student expectations about what higher education should deliver can shift rapidly. While institutional structures may resist change and adapt more slowly (Rosenberg, 2023), such resistance can weaken trust between higher education and society. Student demand provides a useful lens for observing these dynamics because programme choices translate expectations about future careers into observable participation patterns (Ilgan et al., 2018). Prior research suggests that employability related motives often dominate students’ reasons for entering higher education (Kennett et al., 2011) and that extrinsic goals such as earning more money have become more salient across cohorts (Twenge and Donnelly, 2016). In relation to such concerns, higher education is commonly framed as an investment in future earnings and career prospects (Czajkowski et al., 2019). However, under conditions of uncertainty, students move beyond expected returns and make decisions that incorporate risk and the reliability of future outcomes.
In economics term, rather than assuming a gap between expected returns and expected utility, this study conceptualizes student choice as an expected utility maximization problem (Schwartz, 2011) where students incorporate risk, mismatch probability, and the reliability of future outcomes into their decisions. In this context, programme choice becomes increasingly sensitive to both macro-level transformations and shocks such as Covid-19 pandemic, economic volatility, and rapid technological change including the rise of generative artificial intelligence, and institutional signals that shape how these risks are interpreted. These layered sources of uncertainty interact to reshape perceived returns across fields of study, as rising overeducation and policy changes affecting teacher employment pathways (Ernas, 2024; Ministry of National Education, 2024). The study uses publicly available administrative data from the Student Selection and Placement Center and the Council of Higher Education in Türkiye to track first-year placements and enrolments by programme across public and private universities from 2010 to 2025. To reduce programme level complexity, all programmes are mapped to 11 broad fields using ISCED-F 2013 (EUROSTAT, n.d.), allowing trend analysis across domains such as Education, Engineering, ICT, and Health.
Because placement and entrance-score signals are produced and mediated by national agencies, the analysis also speaks to how intermediary institutions shape perceived risk, opportunity, and trust. Building on human capital theory, this study conceptualizes programme choice as a risk-adjusted investment decision under uncertainty which is shaped by both institutional signals and broader structural transformations, thereby extending demand-side models of student choice beyond stable return expectations. Combining these, the study aims to address two research questions: (i) Do field shares and institutional choices display statistically detectable breaks in levels or slopes during predefined disruption related periods? and, (ii) Do observed shifts reflect reallocation across fields rather than only changes in overall volume? The analysis models field shares, bounded between 0 and 1, using time trends and disruption period indicators. In parallel, it tracks within year standardized entrance scores by field as a proxy for selectivity and competitive pressure acknowledging that raw points are not comparable across years since exam scaling changes over time.
Preliminary interpretive patterns indicate a noticeable recovery in student participation to higher education in 2022 following pandemic disruption, followed by a widespread decline in 2023 and 2024. Teacher education displays the sharp drop in the most recent year, engineering remains comparatively stable, and ICT shows an earlier rise followed by a later decline. These patterns suggest that student demand responds dynamically to changing perceptions of risk and return under uncertainty, consistent with expected utility considerations (Montmarquette et al., 2002). The Turkish case is an exemplary context characterized by a centralized higher education placement system. While focusing on Türkiye, the study speaks to broader dynamics observed in higher education systems facing economic and technological uncertainty. In particular, it considers how university leaders and intermediary agencies can use enrolment signals and policy instruments more transparently to reduce uncertainty, support institutional mission, and respond credibly to shifting student and societal expectations.