Countries have shared the very rapid expansion of higher or tertiary education, which means that instead of this being an experience enjoyed by a privileged minority, it has now become even the majority experience of each new cohort. There are broad trends visible across the OECD – for instance, the growing international tertiary education market and the greater formalisation of quality assurance. Despite rising costs for the individual, tertiary education remains a primarily public enterprise in most countries. There has been prominent OECD work on higher education, including on internationalisation, a major review of tertiary education, the regional role of higher education institutions (HEIs), the future of higher education, and feasibility work on the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). “Supporting Quality Teaching in Higher Education” has identified long-term improvement factors for teaching staff, decision-making bodies and institutions. Work on the transition opportunities of young adults with disabilities into tertiary education and employment has showed the progress made in recent years and identified areas for further progress. Policy orientations include the need to develop and work towards strategic visions, to ensure that quality assurance serves both improvement and accountability purposes, and to use cost sharing between the state and students as the principle to shape the sector’s funding.