Offering Educational Services on an Industry and National Scale

A few days ago I was a moderator in an conference on the topic of UN Sustainable Development goals. Much of the discussion revolved around the cost of education and how we have Western perceptions of higher education but many countries may not need the same level of theoretical ideas and should be much more practical. That discussion brought up an opportunity to consider national scale higher education offerings. 

Let us say that we looked at a country's GDP and their needs 15-20 years down the road. We may find that we need 10K people to work in technology, 5K in military skills, etc.... Each of these are then broken down into specific skill sets that can be taught. 

I wonder if it is possible to offer packages to countries of higher education offerings. While these offerings may come from American universities we do know that online education is opening new opportunities. It wouldn't be far fetched to offer to open a certain amount of educational slots for particular prices. 

There are likely to be lots of issues and people will find exceptions. I'm only saying that it is an idea and that is how things start. Most countries have enough statistical information to calculate approximately how much of each skill they may need. 

This would be one way big data can work within the higher education sector. One could offer a wholesale educational plans for sectors of an economy. That education may be catered to that sector and the nation/region in which it exists. 

It does sort of bring up the idea of is it wise to offer streamlined "watered down" or "efficient skills based" education; depending on how you view the situation.