Abstract:

In recent years, there has been a growing debate about the role of higher education in shaping the career and social well-being of graduates, as well as the quality of higher education in general. Therefore, it is essential to seek the views of business and employers on the importance and value of higher education in order to assess the real situation and propose solutions to existing problems. The aim of this article is to analyse the views of entrepreneurs about higher education as a value and its impact on the well-being of the individual, society and territory.

The article has been developed within the framework of the fundamental and applied research project “Transformation of Educational Value for Cultural and Economic Growth of Social Community” with the financial support of the Ministry of Education and Science.

This article presents an analysis based on a survey collected in 2022, Latvia among was conducted among employers from companies of various industries and sizes (in terms of turnover and number of employees). Data processing and interpretation has been made by SPSS and obtained data with 95% probability represent the general population size. The results do not show significant differences depending on the size, industry or territorial affiliation of the companies, however, some trends emerge. In the framework of the study, the initially proposed hypothesis was tested, i.e. employers assessment of higher education as a value differs significantly depending on the size of the company, industry and region.

Keywords:

Higher education, companies, employers, value.