Overeducation International (OI)

Overeducation International

Overeducation International (OI) is a registered non-profit organization in the state of Massachusetts, in the United States.

OI is dedicated to analysis of the supply and demand for university graduates worldwide with a focus on surplus of graduates. Societies all over the world put a great value on higher education degrees. Governments and private citizens spend large amounts of money on educational and research activities in universities. The result of this massive investment in higher education has been a sharp increase in supply of college graduates. While training of a skilled workforce has a positive impact on technological and economic development of nations, there is a proper balance between the number of high-skilled jobs and low-skilled jobs in every economic system and this balance is determined by the available technology of production. 

In many countries, however, the  supply of university graduates has increased at a faster pace than the demand for university skills. As a result a growing portion of university graduates in many fields of specialization are unable to find suitable jobs. They are either unemployed or have had to accept low skill jobs. Overeducation International is dedicated to analyzing this development and creating awareness about its causes and consequences.

Our goal is to educate the public and policy-makers about the growing incidence of Overeducation all over the world. Academic research on overeducation has increased significantly since 1970. We tab into the growing body of academic and journalistic publications on overeducation to provide information and statistics on state of higher education and status of college graduates in various countries. In addition to the main pages in English, the OI website offers information in several other languages ( Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Turkish). This information will help the scholars and policy-makers to develop a better understanding of how each country is dealing with the issue and offer policy recommendations based on best practices of all countries.

We invite you to cooperate with Overeducation International by sending us content in English or the other languages that are listed above. Help us make OI the main online source for research on overeducation. Please email your suggestions and content recommendations to the director of OI.