Research On The Coordination Relationship Of Higher Education And Economy Development

With the approach of the intellectual economy age, the role of higher education is becoming more and more evident in economic development. Thus the mutual interaction between higher education and growth of regional economy is of great importance to regional and cities’ coordinated development.Based on the summary of the relevant theoretical and practical researches at home and abroad, the paper firstly explains a thorough influencing mechanism of higher education on the economy, including development of educational economics, the influence of higher education scales on economic growth and the impact of higher education framework on economic structure. Secondly, combining empirical research with normative research, qualitative with quantitative research, the paper uses both methods like scatter diagram, gray correlation analysis (standard deviation, range, range rate, coefficient of variation) to measure spatial differentiations and factor analysis to analyze the reciprocity, differentiation and coordination of higher education and regional economy systematically.The results show as follows. On the overall level of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River metropolitans, absolute difference between higher education and economy is broadening, while their relative difference is diminishing. In addition, higher education in Wuhan urban circle and Xiangzhutan agglomeration is more developed than that in Wangjiang city group and Poyang Lake ecological economic zone. Nevertheless, Anhui Province and Jiangxi Province have been developing rather rapidly, especially in Anhui, under the influence of the educational strategy, higher education is booming, the gap among Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei is narrowing down. As for economy, Wuhan urban circle and Wangjiang city group has a decided advantage; and Xiangzhutan agglomeration is speeding up, trying to have a closer relationship with Wuhan urban circle and Wangjiang city group; while Poyang Lake ecological economic zone falls behind, and the chasm remains sharp.Through the association analysis of higher education and economy’s interaction, the paper finds out that the scale of higher education is significantly correlated with economic growth, despite the fact that the growth of higher education scale is not consistent with that of economic growth. Structurally, the amount of graduates increases under the influence of original smaller amount and increasing demands, especially in science, economics, management and humanities with the expansion of secondary and tertiary industries. According to the quantitative evaluation on coordination and the degree of correlation between higher education and economy, cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River metropolitans are divided into two zones, that is concordant zone and non-concordant zone. To be more specific, concordant zone is clearly classified into high-level, medium-level and low-level, while non-concordant zone is differentiated between education-leading zone and economy-leading zone. Lastly, some suggestions on higher education and economic development are proposed for better promotion of social and economic development.