Oeconomicus vs. Academicus: A Diachronic Perspective of the Relationship Between Kondratieff Cycles and the Structural Reforms of Higher Education

The aim of this paper is to present, in the general, non-exhaustive manner, the diachronic relationship between the macroeconomic phenomenology of the Kondratieff cycles and the higher education targeted educational reforms. Historical evidence, presented by the specialty literature, prove these reforms took place in the decline phases of the Kondratieff cycles, to the social-economic subsumed phenomena characteristic to each of them. Adhering to the idea of passing through the fifth cycle, the second part of the paper raises several questions that could be fully debated upon in future research, such as: in the academicus vs. oeconomicus debate of the beginning of this millennium, influenced by the economic and financial crisis, are we in the cyclic phase ascension, given the global quasi-structural reforms in the higher education systems (regionally USA-Europe-Asia/Pacific polarized in the triangle)? Could globalization and higher education massification through internationalization be considered paradigms of the current Kondratieff long wave?