Higher education is typically viewed as offering the most assured pathways to secure careers and low unemployment rates. Yet, increasingly some groups, not least higher education graduates and their families paying ever-higher tuition fees, question the taken-for-granted contributions higher education makes to individuals and society. While participation rates have climbed worldwide, higher education systems continue to produce winners and losers. In the face of such challenges globally, which alternatives exist? A prominent possibility, pioneered in Germany, is ‘dual study’ programmes. These programmes fully integrate phases of higher education study and paid work in firms, illustrating how employer interests and investments are (re)shaping advanced skill formation. Co-developed and co-financed by employers, they could ameliorate the global trend towards saddling students with ever-higher education costs and student debt. Grounded in neo-institutional analysis, expert interviews, and document analysis, we analyse the genesis and rapid expansion of dual study programmes, emphasizing the role of employer interests and highlighting distributional conflicts in the new politics of advanced skill formation. Furthermore, we discuss lessons other countries might glean from a new form of work-based higher education in Germany. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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