A road to improving the quality of private higher education in Nicaragua: finding a specific field to develop is a study which main goal is to find a needed field in the curriculum of private universities in Nicaragua. As there is a constant in selecting similar majors for decades, and education rates in studies are low, the need for taking a new direction in the education system arose. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research, containing interviews to key individuals related to the education industry and a survey to senior students of two private institutions, the research finds answers to questions related to main majors hunted from senior high school students, university ratings, missing fields, and steps to take to include the new field to develop. After analyzing results and interview findings, the new field proposed for the country is agriculture, as it is the main asset from the country and contributes in a high percentage with the gross domestic product. It is a field empirically experimented in the past, but has not been taken seriously in the curriculum of private institutions. Education in Nicaragua is in a good road, taking similar steps taken by developed Latin American countries education system.

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................................ II
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................ V
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................... V
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................... 4
2.1 OVERVIEW OF NICARAGUA AND ITS ECONOMY ........................................................................... 4
2.2 HIGHER EDUCATION RATES ......................................................................................................... 4
2.3 MAIN MAJORS IN THE COUNTRY ................................................................................................. 7
2.4 BENCHMARK AGAINST HIGHEST EDUCATION LEVEL COUNTRIES IN LATIN AMERICA .................. 8
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 11
3.1 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................... 11
3.2 HYPOTHESES AND STATEMENTS................................................................................................ 12
3.3 PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURES .............................................................................................. 13
3.3.1 Stage one: Survey .............................................................................................................. 13
3.3.2 Stage two: Interview.......................................................................................................... 15
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS................................................................................................................. 16
4.1 FINDINGS FROM SURVEY STUDY ................................................................................................ 16
4.1.1 Relationship between the students mobility and the degree level desired ........................ 16
4.1.2 Dependency between mobility and major selected ........................................................... 18
4.1.3 Dependency between offering of popular universities and selected majors ..................... 19
4.1.4 Comparison of non-available majors and list offered by CNU ........................................ 22
4.1.5 List of majors and pursuit rate on survey ......................................................................... 23
4.2 INTERVIEWS FINDINGS .............................................................................................................. 24
4.2.1 Representative from the Government Bureau ................................................................... 24
4.2.2 University Professor ......................................................................................................... 24
4.2.3 Private Sector Manager .................................................................................................... 25
4.3 OTHER FINDINGS DURING THE RESEARCH .................................................................................. 26
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS ................................................................ 29
5.1 DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................. 29
5.2 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ..................................... 31
5.3 LIMITATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 33
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 34
APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................................... 35
A. CATALOG OF UNIVERSITIES AND FIELDS AVAILABLE IN NICARAGUA 2018 ................................. 35
B. SURVEY DETAILS ....................................................................................................................... 53
C. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ............................................................................................................... 57
C.1 Government sector worker .................................................................................................. 57
C.2 University professor ............................................................................................................ 57
C.3 Private Sector manager ....................................................................................................... 57
D. LIST OF PURSUIT MAJORS ........................................................................................................... 58

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