The impact of inflation, monetary policy and economic uncertainty on higher education, a study of selected Islamic countries.

Higher education serves human resource development and national transformation through education, research, and social service. Since the Great Depression of 1929 until the COVID-19 pandemic, various research efforts have been made to analyze the effects of economic uncertainty on underlying indicators, including higher education. After the information technology revolution and its intermittent spread to developing countries and the increased attention of households to higher education, as well as the increased demand for educated labor by firms, it has had an increasing and then decreasing trend from 2000 to 2019.In this study, the impact of economic variables, especially inflation, monetary policies, and economic policy uncertainty, on the demand for enrollment in higher education was examined. The countries studied included Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan. The time period studied was from 1971 to 2022. The econometric method used in examining the model was the generalized system moment method. The results of the study showed that GDP per capita, secondary school enrollment rate, urbanization ratio to total population, global uncertainty index and broad money as an indicator of monetary policies and the share of education expenditure in government expenditure had a positive and significant effect, and on the other hand, the consumer price index and the interaction of inflation, money and uncertainty had a negative and significant effect on the demand for enrollment in higher education. The share of household expenditure to total GDP and the ratio of the young population to the total population did not have a significant effect on the demand for enrollment in higher education in the countries studied.