The Ratio of Higher Education Development Policies and School Demand

The quantitative development of higher education depends on the policies adopted by different governments. But social demand can disrupt these policies. Increasing number of universities and uneven development of higher education influenced by global developments such as mass becoming one of the factors affecting the social demand of the population for the development of higher education in the country.  The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of Iranian higher education development policies on social demand and the causes of social demand for higher education in the country.For this purpose, qualitative method was used. At the data gathering stage, firstly, a documentary study of the policies and laws of the country in the field of higher education policies was carried out, and in the other part of the research, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 30 higher education informants and stakeholders.The findings of the present study indicate that population growth and the growth of basic literacy rates in the country over the past decades, on the one hand, and social justice and the public's awareness of the right to know on the other have been the basis for their social demand.Social demand has led to the lack of territorial planning in the field of higher education and thus to the inadvertent establishment of educational centers, the high unemployment of university graduates and the consequence of passive policies in the field of higher education, and education has been deprived of quality.Therefore, given the social demand of higher education in Iran, which is rooted in the acquisition of cultural status, the causal link between higher education and employment is not conceivable.