Degrees of Dignity by Elizabeth Buckner

Author:Elizabeth Buckner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Federal government – Canada
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

The Growth of Private Higher Education

In the second half of the twentieth century, private higher education was practically non-existent in many parts of the world, and the Middle East and North Africa were no exception (Buckner, 2017). It was even less common in newly independent nations, which were focused on establishing higher education systems that would serve their states in both symbolic and material ways. The idea that higher education could be organized and funded by individuals or investors for profit-making purposes was either inconceivable or rejected. The important task of educating, socializing, and sorting youth into life paths was simply not left to market processes. Rather, the state, which was viewed in many parts of the world as either an arbiter of the public good or as a mediator of group interests, was considered the only legitimate provider of higher education.

Since the late 1980s, however, privatization has spread rapidly worldwide in line with the entrenchment of neoliberalism in education and development. The academic literature on private higher education distinguishes between two phenomena: cost-sharing and private higher education. Cost-sharing refers to policies and practices that shift the burden of higher education away from the government and onto institutions, students, and families (Johnstone, 2004). It occurs within public-sector higher education and generally entails both revenue generation and cost-cutting. Revenue generation typically includes increasing tuition fees or starting new fee-paying degree tracks, such as the parallel programs discussed in chapter 2. Cost-cutting implies finding greater efficiencies, such as increasing class sizes and replacing full-time faculty with part-time lecturers. Countries around the world have had to balance increasing demand with rising costs and stagnant public funds, and cost-sharing is a global phenomenon (Johnstone & Marcucci, 2010).

The creation of a privately owned and operated higher education sector is considered one form of cost-sharing because it allows the government to expand enrolments in higher education without expanding the public sector. However, these wholly private institutions differ in important ways from other forms of cost-sharing. Private higher education institutions are “non-state” actors – they are typically tuition dependent and operate in competitive markets for students. In many countries graduates of private universities must undergo additional regulation to have their degrees recognized by the state.

In the academic literature private higher education is thought to grow primarily to meet the needs that are not met in the public sector. The three primary reasons for the spread of private higher education worldwide are identified as “more,” “better,” and “different” (Levy, 2006b). By far the most common type, more means that private higher education has grown to meet demand that is not met in the public sector, due to limited capacity, inadequate resources, or geographic constraints (Kinser et al., 2010). The spread of new demand-absorbing private higher education has been prevalent throughout the Arab world; private universities are founded by a diverse range of providers, including individual proprietors, profit-seeking business interests, charitable organizations, and foundations. The private sector can also expand when it offers a “better” education. Better implies a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.