Study On The Spatial Differences Of Higher Education To Regional Economic Growth

Education is the key to the prosperity of a country and a nation,and plays a pivotal role in the inheritance of human society.Higher education is an important part of the education system and plays a vital role in cultivating high-quality talents,promoting scientific and technological innovation,and fostering economic growth.2015 saw the release of the National Development Plan for the Mid-Yangtze River City Cluster,which has since elevated the development of the Mid-Yangtze River City Cluster to a national development strategy.The city cluster has made significant contributions to technological innovation,industrial transformation and upgrading,and higher education is key to supporting talent development and promoting innovation in the city cluster.How the development of higher education in this city cluster can meet the needs of high-quality economic development has become a pressing issue for the society at present.Based on the above research background,this paper uses a scientific decision analysis tool to qualitatively and quantitatively analyse the contribution rate of higher education to regional economic growth and spatial differences among cities in the middle reaches of Yangtze River urban agglomeration,in an attempt to provide reference for universities in the middle reaches of Yangtze River urban agglomeration to improve their contribution rate to education.The study is divided into the following parts:In the first part,the relevant concepts and theoretical foundations are sorted out.Based on domestic and foreign research on higher education,it provides a solid theoretical foundation for subsequent research.The talents cultivated by higher education institutions have high scientific and cultural literacy,which is an important factor in promoting scientific,technological and social progress.To promote the transformation of regional economic growth and narrow the gap between regions,the development of higher education is the key.The second part describes the development status of economy and higher education in the middle reaches of Yangtze River urban agglomeration comprehensively in terms of higher education scale,resource distribution,hierarchical structure and the interaction between regional GDP and industrial employment.The middle reaches of Yangtze River region has made obvious progress in the fields of training and teaching,scientific and technological output,and social services.However,there are insufficient investment in higher education funding,unreasonable spatial allocation of higher education resources,brain drain of college graduates and mismatch between professional structure and economic structure.The imbalance of resources within the three main urban clusters is obvious.The third part uses Denison factor analysis method to measure the contribution rate of higher education to economic growth in the middle reaches of Yangtze River city cluster based on Cobb-Douglas production function and compares it with the national average contribution rate.The results find that the contribution level of higher education to economic growth in Wuhan city circle is obvious;the role of higher education in promoting economic growth in some areas of Changzhutan city cluster is low.The contribution of higher education to economic growth in Poyang Lake city cluster is more balanced but relatively weak.The fourth part explores the factors of higher education that affect the contribution to economic growth by using multiple regression model.The current contribution degree of higher education to economy in the city cluster is mainly influenced by human capital,distribution of higher education resources,construction of high-level talent team,investment in higher education,output and transformation of scientific and technological innovation results,and other factors.Combined with the actual situation of higher education development,the existence of such phenomena as large differences in regional human capital stock,unbalanced spatial allocation of higher education resources,weak stability of higher graduates’ talents and weak transformation ability of scientific research results are unfavorable to economic development.The fifth part puts forward corresponding suggestions according to the problems of higher education for economic growth in the middle reaches of Yangtze River city cluster.In the future,it is also necessary to accelerate the connotative development of colleges and universities,ensure that the financial investment is compatible with the scale expansion,reasonably allocate the higher education resources in the region,promote the radiation of high-quality educational resources to the surrounding areas,improve the strength of attracting talents,and improve the efficiency of scientific research results output.The innovation of this paper is to focus on the middle reaches of Yangtze River urban agglomeration,a national important strategic development region,and to select 28prefecture-level cities in the three main urban agglomerations to measure the contribution rate of higher education and the economy,and to select representative cities for specific analysis,expanding the current research on the impact of higher education on economic growth from a municipal perspective.The paper measures the contribution of higher education to economic growth in 28 cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River urban agglomeration,and analyses the spatial differences among cities.The results show that Wuhan has the largest contribution to economic development,while Changsha and Nanchang have the same level of contribution and a larger gap with Wuhan.The contribution of education to economic growth is high in Xiangtan and Shangrao,but the role of higher education is not significant,and there are some cities where the role of education in economic growth is not obvious at all levels.The current contribution of higher education to economic growth in the middle reaches of Yangtze River city cluster is mainly influenced by the scale of higher education institutions,the distribution of higher education resources,the level of human capital,and the output and transformation of scientific and technological achievements.The degree of positive effect of various aspects of higher education on economic growth varies between cities,with the three major provincial capitals contributing more to the economy.In the future,it is necessary for the cities in the middle reaches of Yangtze River to grasp the important strategic opportunity period of economic development,pay attention to the adaptability of higher education funding and scale expansion,strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the field of regional higher education,improve the talent absorption capacity of each city,enhance the matching degree of professional and industrial structures,and promote the output and transformation of scientific research results to further play the leading role of the city cluster strategy.