Higher Education and Regional Economic Development: Patterns, Interactions and Policy Implications from China’s Coastal Urban Regions

Achieving coordinated development between higher education and regional economies is central to sustainable urban growth. This study examines the spatiotemporal coupling coordination between higher education and economic development across 90 cities within seven major coastal urban agglomerations in China over the period 2008–2021. An evaluation index system was constructed across seven dimensions, and three analytical methods were integrated: the entropy weight method for composite index calculation, the coupling coordination degree model for assessing synergistic development, and the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model for dynamic interaction analysis. A fixed-effects regression model was further applied to identify key driving factors. The results indicate that: (1) higher education levels showed a steady upward trend across all agglomerations, while widening absolute disparities persisted among cities; (2) although a bidirectional Granger-causal relationship exists between higher education and economic development, the interaction is asymmetric along two distinct dimensions: higher education exerts a more statistically robust predictive influence on the economy, while unforecast economic shocks transmit more strongly to higher education than the reverse; this asymmetry manifests in specific urban agglomerations—most notably the Pearl River Delta—as a structural mismatch between economic strength and higher education development; (3) economic development level, government fiscal support, urbanization, and higher education scale are significantly associated with the coupling coordination between the two systems. These findings highlight the structural misalignment between higher education supply and regional economic demand and underscore the need for differentiated, spatially targeted policy interventions to promote sustainable regional development. Policy recommendations are proposed for optimizing higher-education resource allocation, reforming talent cultivation, and strengthening intra-agglomeration coordination mechanisms.