Marketisation in Higher Education, Clark's Triangle and the Essential Ingredients of Markets (original) (raw)
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Not all markets are created equal : re-conceptualizing market elements in higher education
Increasing reliance on market mechanisms in higher education is analysed both as one of the approaches to steering as well as in relation to the consequences of markets for quality and accessibility of higher education. This article goes beyond the normative considerations of market elements as inherently good or bad and the economic theory-guided focus on freedoms of users and providers, by presenting an alternative conceptualization. The conceptualization adapted from studies of markets in other parts of the welfare state to the context of higher education is based on two dimensions: (1) who effectively controls production of certain goods and services and (2) how access to and funding of these goods and services are regulated. It focuses on interests of three main actors—the state, the users (students) and the providers (higher education institutions). This leads to six conceptually distinct markets, whose key characteristics are illustrated by examples from Denmark, England, India, Norway, Portugal and Serbia. The key message is that this alternative conceptualization allows identifying variance in marketization of higher education with regards to (1) which actors are empowered, (2) who are the likely winners and losers and (3) what might be the risks of introducing specific market elements in a higher education system. More generally, a more nuanced analysis relying on this conceptualization can potentially contribute to a deeper understanding of political and policy dynamics in higher education.
The Visible Hand of the Market in European Higher Education Policies
2018
The conclusion chapter brings together the insights gained through the exploration of the multiple forces, drivers and actors that have been shaping European policy in the area of higher education. The global tendencies towards liberalisation of markets and neoliberal thinking have influenced the rhetoric about higher education and its purposes. European Union institutions, too, have facilitated this new direction for higher education, seen as an engine of the continent’s economic growth. Although not explicit in European policy, the invisible hand of the market is becoming more and more visible in European higher education, exerting pressure through the intervention of European institutions in areas not immediately and obviously related to higher education. National sovereignty, evident in the implementation of the Bologna Process, has represented an obstacle to the pursuit of this economic agenda.
The impossibility of capitalist markets in higher education
Journal of Education Policy, 2013
For more than two decades governments around the world, led by the English-speaking polities, have moved higher education systems closer to the forms of textbook economic markets. Reforms include corporatisation, competitive funding, student charges, output formats and performance reporting. But no country has established a bona fide economic market in the first-degree education of domestic students. No research university is driven by shareholders, profit, market share, allocative efficiency or the commodity form. There is commercial tuition only in parts of vocational training and international education. While intensified competition, entrepreneurship and consumer talk are pervasive in higher education, capitalism is not. At the most there are regulated quasi-markets, as in post-Browne UK. This differs from the experience of privatisation and commercialisation of transport, communications, broadcasting and health insurance in many nations. The paper argues that bona fide market reform in higher education is constrained by intrinsic limits specific to the sector (public goods, status competition), and political factors associated with those limits. This suggests that market reform is utopian, and the abstract ideal is sustained for exogenous policy reasons (e.g. fiscal reduction, state control, ordering of contents). But if capitalist markets are clearly unachievable, a more authentic modernisation agenda is needed.
The Marketization of Higher Education
Higher education initially a government –supported service has entered the marketplace. Many countries have encompassed the notion of marketization of higher education. A commodity economy driven by market ideology has motivated the students to perceive higher education as a medium to gain meaningful employment, attain professional growth and social status. Universities are big businesses that are aggressively marketing themselves to turn into a brand. Funding of higher education is transferring gradually from the government to the students. Market ethic as an ideological force in higher education policy though has enhanced the participation rates, but the equity in educational opportunities has come under threat. Another challenge that higher education systems across the world face is that of quality education. It is important both economically and on equity grounds, for increasing the number of government funded universities as against private higher education institutions several of which provide education of debatable quality.
This paper explores how decision makers in higher education perceive marketisation in the sector in relation to teaching and learning provision. The study is interested in the nature of relationships between public universities and other actors, particularly private companies, in relation to the creation, delivery and support of educational provision as well as public universities' perspectives on these relationships. The study draws on 33 interviews with senior decision-makers and managers in higher education at six research-intensive and six teaching-oriented universities in South Africa and England. Questions we raise in this paper are: How do senior decision makers perceive the entry of private players in public HE? What are their experiences of working with private companies in partnership? What values do they associate with marketisation? What effect do they think the relationship is having on the status of the public university? How do they talk about the market actors? We argue that in both study sites there is a hybrid economy but that it is varied in its manifestation, with relationships more or less emergent or established. We discuss this in terms of alignment of practices and values which are guided by sometimes different roles and purposes; emerging and contested business models for income generation; pedagogical imperatives that guide public-private partnerships; and polarized notions of partnerships that raise the question of quality and control. The paper concludes with reflection on policy implications.
The limits of market reform in higher education
Higher Education Forum, 2010
The paper argues that the failure of economic market reform reflects not simply political capture or the absence of governmental will but the intrinsic character of higher education and research. The public good nature of knowledge is irreducible. The primary economic (and social) contributions of higher education institutions are indirect and conditional rather than quantifiable as products. Status competition in elite institutions operates with a different logic to conventional product markets. National marketsystem models cannot comprehend the increasing globalization of research universities.
The' Market for Higher Education: Does it Really Exist?
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2009
Higher education, like any other commodity or service, has been viewed in a variety of economic frameworks. Little of this work, however, appears to have made any effort to define carefully the boundaries of the relevant market for higher education, which is the subject of this particular inquiry. Market definition is an essential preliminary step before any academic or policy investigation can properly be made into the forces that determine the behavior of the buyers and sellers of higher education, those who provide inputs into the education process, or those who fund or otherwise subsidize it. The authors spell out the key economic dimensions of a market, and illustrate their relevance for research that seeks to analyze the players and policies in the many distinct domestic and international markets that exist for the inputs and outputs of the higher education sector.
The marketisation of higher education: symptoms, controversies, trends
Ekonomia i Prawo
Motivation: Marketisation of higher education accompanying the development of a market economy having expressed, among others, the 'imitation' of management models specific to the enterprise sector, an adaptation of the market terminology, changing roles of students and the importance of their satisfaction with the study causes still a lot of controversy in the academic community, dividing it into supporters and opponents of the current process with a strong predominance of the first group. Aim: The aim of this article is to present the arguments and opinions of supporters and opponents (deck research) and the chosen Polish university representatives (primary research) of the marketization process of higher education. In the article the results of desk research as well as the author's own research will be used. Results: Supporters of marketisation argue that this process will turn universities into more flexible, more efficient and more responsive to the needs of society, the economy, students and parents institutions. Opponents pay attention to the cultural, intellectual and pedagogic consequences of this process. Both groups conclude that there is no turning back from this process and it cannot be avoided. Intensification of university marketing is perceived both by representatives of Polish public and non-public universities, as shown by the research conducted by the author. There were no significant differences in terms of the statements made by representatives of the different types of universities. Only sometimes more decision-making flexibility of non-public universities was emphasized, better use of information technology in their communication with prospective and current students, better knowledge of IT tools as well as slightly more intensification of promotional activities.
Market Making & University Reform Vignettes
Learning and Teaching The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, 2022
Universities everywhere are experiencing on-going organisational change. Whether read from the bottom-up through the strategies of entrepreneurial universities (Komljenovic and Robertson 2016) or top-down through government funding models (Newfield 2008; Readings 1996), change is seen as entangled with the penetration of market relations (McGettigan 2013; Robertson and Muellerleile 2017; Williamson 2021). But what exactly are these market relations in contemporary universities, what work do they perform, and how are they driving change? This article is composed of vignettes that examine change in today's universities by foregrounding the making of markets. The vignettes shed light on a small but diverse set of sites and moments in university life at which market imaginaries, practices, relations and institutions are brought to bear on the organisation of public universities. They reveal how universities are being restructured into market forms – not by any singular or programmatic project but as the consequence of the work of multiple agents. The two vignettes here highlight the ways in which universities are being re-imagined as sites and sources of income generation - and how this way of thinking/imagining the university has become increasingly normalised in academic practice.