The relationship between higher education and economic development has long been emphasized in the research on economics and education. Much of the existing literature focuses on the gross domestic product (GDP) as a core measure of a nation’s economic accounting system, but this may neglect some negative effects of production, such as resource depletion and environmental damage. Under such circumstances, the concept of “green GDP” was conceived to consider environmental influence simultaneously with the economy. It is, however, only theoretically feasible due to the complexity in calculating environmental pollution and the unavailability of data about resource consumption. Considering the measurement problems, this paper proposes a new approach to indirectly estimate green GDP. Using this approach, we mainly explore the impact of higher education on economic growth, especially regarding the development of a green economy. Results show that (a) higher education plays a significant role in building a green economy, and (b) green GDP is more responsive to changes in higher education than the traditional GDP. This study provides empirical evidence for the substantial contribution that higher education makes in promoting green economic growth to achieve comprehensive sustainable development.

This study investigated the contributions of human capital and physical capital to economies at different stages by measuring the economic development with the traditional GDP and green GDP. The traditional GDP stood for the quantity of economic growth, and the green GDP, taking both the energy consumption and environmental pollution into account, was employed to represent the sustainability of economic development. We used a panel data of 143 countries and regions during the period from 1990 to 2014, and results showed that the elasticities of output with respect to human capital were greater compared to physical capital, while green GDP was significantly more sensitive to changes in human capital than the traditional GDP. In particular, considering the unbalanced distribution of economic growth among countries and regions, we employed the quantile regression model to explore the heterogeneous roles of physical and human capital in different stages of economic development, which evidenced not only the significance but also the stability of human capital. As national economic levels grew, countries became less dependent on physical capital, yet human capital maintained its outstanding role at different stages of economic development, particularly for the building of more sustainable economies.

As the number of college graduates increases dramatically in recent years in China, the Chinese Central government encourages college graduates to partake in entrepreneurial activities. The current study uses data from a nationwide institutional survey of directors of career services of 840 Chinese colleges and universities to study the current situation of student entrepreneurship and relevant institutional guidance practices. Our results show that, although China's college graduates have a high level of entrepreneurial intention, the actual entrepreneurship population is low, and the entrepreneurship survival rate is not high. Among all colleges and universities, directors of career services in most competitive universities rate higher to the entrepreneurial guidance practices provided in their institutions. Our findings suggest that governments and higher education institutions should pay attention to cultivating college students' entrepreneurial spirit, encouraging opportunity entrepreneurship, as well as providing substantial startup supports based on actual needs.