Higher Education

Higher education refers to education of undergraduate degree level or above that is generally, but not exclusively, undertaken within universities. It also encompasses the broader set of activities of universities including research and enterprise. The growth of consumption terminology, values, and practices within higher education arose within a context of rapid and complex global change that included the increasing commodification of education and research, which accelerated from the 1980s onward. Globally, universities have become comparatively more dependent on their relationships with industry and less dependent on their relationships with states. This contrasts with a former era where they were primarily aligned with states, and research and teaching were more frequently conceptualized as public sector activities provided as welfare. The new commodified higher education is characterized as managerialist: market-orientated managers control and shape the work of academics to maximize income. Also, the all-encompassing nature of marketization has resulted in consumption-orientated behavior and values permeating all activities and relationships within universities.

Education markets are not pure markets. One reason is that a range of nonmarket factors shape what happens in universities. The declining proportion of state funding is coupled with increasing state control of universities, which is achieved by granting and withdrawing state funding according to current national priorities; for example, states might fund universities that are successful in widening access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds or those who prioritize vocational or science courses. Publicly available league tables that rate universities nationally and internationally are not produced by states but are also influential in shaping the activities of universities as they are important in conveying and reinforcing reputations in national and global higher education markets. Universities respond to league tables because they are influential. Students draw on them in choosing courses, and the most qualified students expect to go to the highest-rated universities. The status of staff in universities is also heavily dependent on reputation and league-table positions. Universities use league tables in their marketing to attract students, staff, and private and public financers of research and training. States, industry, and universities increasingly act similarly because in neoliberal societies, they are all organized through market relations. State funding therefore does not necessarily reduce marketization or the commodification of universities business. A whole range of commodified products and activities are associated with universities, including the following: the use and creation of textbooks that package knowledge; the creation and utilization of commercial software packages in teaching students; and the increasing role of patents, copyrights, contracts, trademarks, and logos in branding and asserting ownership. This restricts access to knowledge to those who can afford to pay. [Page 715]While the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom are the often-cited examples of increasingly marketized higher education systems, a broader literature describes global trends that play out differently in various national contexts. There has been a global increase in the proportion of funding from private sources (e.g., industry, alumni, benefactors, and public-sector customers who pay for research and training) and students (home and international) and their parents (who pay fees), but the degree of money from different sources varies as does the role of higher education in different nations.

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