Based on the 1981 conference on policies for higher education of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, recent trends in higher education and prospects for the future are considered, along with approaches to guide the development of policies during the decade. The chief areas of concern are as follows: access to higher education and the implications of changes in student demand; the changing relationship between higher education and working life; new patterns of governance and authority and the issues of autonomy and participation; financing and redeployment of resources for maintaining the development; and the research capacity of higher education institutions. Specific topics include: admission policies, changing links between secondary and higher education, access to new groups and new forms of attendance, employment and recruitment prospects for college graduates, the relationships between overall supply of and demand for young college graduates, models of governance in different countries, pressures for change with respect to higher education governance, the education share in the country's national income or overall state budget, factors accounting for changes in the share of education in the national resources, the distribution of public expenditure by level of education, unit cost data as derived from aggregate expenditure and enrollment data, the reform of college studies and specifically the humanities and social sciences, ways that higher education can respond to a greater emphasis on working life, the effect of education policy and science/technology policy on research in higher education, and the way that funds for research are distributed. (SW)