Based on a critical analysis of two countries with very different economic systems and approaches to planning - the USSR and the FRG - this volume examines the complex and changing relationship between higher education and employment under conditions of over-supply of highly qualified graduates and the implications for educational planners. Part I examines the role of education, especially in supplying higher-level manpower, in the process of industrialization, scientific and technological development of the USSR, and discusses the structures, content and methods of the higher education system. The authors analyse the relationship beween higher education and production, and the role of planning in meeting the economy's needs, and offer suggestions for making higher education better respond to employment needs. In Part II the authors describe the structures and development of the education and employment systems in the FRG, examine the changing issues of the political debate on the subject since the post-war period, and describe current research, especially in manpower forecasting. Four papers, on topics including manpower forecasting, the recruitment process and the under-employment of college graduates, are also presented. A comparative study, Part III, identifies differences as well as common elements in the way the two countries view the issues and how they go about adjusting higher education to changing manpower needs.