This study considers patterns of participation according to gender in post-mass higher education from the perspective of higher education expansion in Taiwan. Becker’s D coefficient (D) is used to detect the patterns of gender parity in a ‘critical mass’ field in higher education. The study compared participation in STEM and the humanities in terms of gender parity. ARIMA was used to build the best-fit model to project the future trends of D in both programs. The findings suggest that more females are entering higher education and that there are little gender differences in those entering STEM programs. The gender gaps shown by D in the humanities and in STEM are narrowing rapidly in both the elite and mass stage, but the gap in the universal stage shows little change. The findings provide patterns of gender parity in different programs to interpret the effect of higher education expansion.

Entrepreneurship has been viewed as an opportunity for economic development and changing economic scenario in global markets. Women are viewed as a reservoir of entrepreneurial talents, so they can be growth engines in novel markets. Previous studies have considered entrepreneurship as the most effective way towards the economic empowerment of women. Female students engaged in entrepreneurial education have been addressed persistently, while what transforms them in an education process is still unclear. Considering the transforming global economy and its influence on higher education, this study aims to detect female students transforming entrepreneurial competency, mindset, and intention into sustainable entrepreneurship. Using a self-compiled survey, we targeted 752 female students to investigate their entrepreneurial competency, mindset, and intention. SPSS and AMOS were used to transform the data for interpretation. We assumed that the impact of female student’s entrepreneurial competency could be modified by an entrepreneurial mindset and result in entrepreneurial intention. To detect this causal relationship, this study employed reliability, factor, structural equation modeling (SEM), and bootstrapping analyses to verify the evidence. The result of the SEM confirms that the female students’ entrepreneurial competency will, through their entrepreneurial mindset, impact entrepreneurial intention. With bootstrapping, 5000 samples were collected, and it was demonstrated that the measure constructs were still reliable in the model. This study found that there is a mediation effect between entrepreneurial competency and entrepreneurial intention. The entrepreneurial mindset plays a crucial role in the transformation process. Without an entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial competency cannot exert a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention. The findings can help reinvent related entrepreneurial education in higher education.

The allocation of funding for higher education typically focuses on competition in neoliberal mechanisms. Surprisingly, much less attention has been paid to considering the effect of fund allocations for sustainable development through public goods purposes in neoliberal contexts. This study aims to examine specific funding schemes and determine the influential factors impacting funding for teaching, research, and public goods transformation. Taking Taiwan’s Higher Education Sprout Project (HESP) as an example, we explored the effect of policy initiatives on public goods transformation towards sustainable development. The data were collected from the Ministry of Education and Scopus databases. First, a regression analysis was conducted to determine which factors influence the effect of funding allocations in academic institutes. Second, we used a logistic regression to detect the effects of the system and the sector. Third, we used partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to explore the causal effects among the selected impact variables on expected outcomes. Finally, we used the bootstrap method to demonstrate the model’s robustness. Our study found that only diversity was shown in private technology groups receiving less HESP funding, while it did not widen the differences in the sector and system in the transformation process. Our findings suggest that funding allocations will not affect teaching and research based on sectors and systems. In contrast, this study demonstrates that transforming public goods through special funding can play a critical role in leading sustainable development in higher education.

Student mobility is one of the most important indicators to reflect institutional internationalization in a sustainable higher education system. Student mobility issues have been addressed in previous studies, and the phenomenon was discussed in association with related factors persistently. Since higher education sustainable development has received much scholarly attention, monitoring student mobility flows to adjust international strategies is necessary. This study explored practical approaches to detect student mobility flows in the process of higher education expansion. Targeting Taiwan’s higher education system as an example, we addressed the topic of system expansion and the core issues of student mobility. Target series data were collected from 1950 to 2021, including the economic growth ratio, GDP per capita, higher education enrollment, gross enrollment ratio (GER), and the number of inbound and outbound students. The data were transformed with index formats, for example, the economic growth ratio, enrollment increasing ratio (IR), and net flow ratio. The cross-correlation function (CCF) and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) were used to determine the correlations of the series data and their future trends. The findings suggested that the system expansion, with GER and IR, might reflect fluctuated student mobility in economic growth. This study confirmed that the time series approaches work well in detecting the phenomena of higher education expansion and their effects on student mobility flow in the future.

The allocation of funding for higher education typically focuses on competition in neoliberal mechanisms. Surprisingly, much less attention has been paid to considering the effect of fund locations for sustainable development through public goods purposes in neoliberal contexts. This study aims to examine specific funding schemes and determine the influential factors impacting funding for teaching, research, and public goods transformation. Taking Taiwan's Higher Education Sprout Project (HESP) as an example, we explored the effect of policy initiatives on public goods transformation towards sustainable development. The data were collected from the Ministry of Education and Scopus databases. First, a regression analysis was conducted to determine which factors influence the effect of funding allocations in academic institutes. Second, we used logistic regression to detect the effects of the system and the sector. Third, we used partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to explore the causal effects among the selected impact variables on expected outcomes. Finally, we used the bootstrap method to demonstrate the model’s robustness. Our study found that only diversity was shown in private technology groups receiving less HESP funding. At the same time, it did not widen the differences in the sector and system in the transformation process. Our findings suggest that funding allocations will not affect teaching and research based on sectors and systems. In contrast, this study demonstrates that transforming public goods through special funding can play a critical role in leading sustainable development in higher education.

Literacy has moved from conventional concepts of reading, writing, and counting skills to proficiency in reading, writing, data, technology, and education for sustainable development. The transition aims to prepare students to engage in a sustainable society and the method aims to cultivate multilingualism and inclusiveness in undergraduate education via a first-year writing (FYW) program. Considering the sustainability of such a transition, this study employs a case study of the FYW program to demonstrate to what extent literacy evolves via pedagogical inclusiveness and multilingualism in higher education. The FYW focuses on how educators can ensure pedagogical inclusiveness by inviting the varied language lingua students have before they arrive at our learning community rather than learning the language itself. The new FYW curriculum includes the World English of our students and embraces multilingualism rather than focusing on error correction so that students fit the norms and rules of American English. The longitudinal data from 2010 to 2020 were collected via five surveys with different approaches, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze them. The outcomes indicated that the new premise generates better course outcomes and fosters students as confident and comfortable writers and readers. The FYW program intersects with other STEM programs to build a more sustainable undergraduate education and cultivate students’ literacy capacity for sustainable development and lifelong learning.