The marketisation of higher education is a growing worldwide trend. Increasingly, market steering is replacing or supplementing government steering. Tuition fees are being introduced or increased, usually at the expense of state grants to institutions. Grants for student support are being replaced or supplemented by loans. Commercial rankings and league tables to guide student choice are proliferating with institutions devoting increasing resources to marketing, branding and customer service. The UK is a particularly good example of this, not only because it is a country where marketisation has arguably proceeded furthest, but also because of the variations that exist as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland increasingly diverge from England. In Everything for Sale, Roger Brown argues that the competitive regime that is now applicable to our Higher Education system was the logical, and possibly inevitable, outcome of a process that began with the introduction of full cost fees for overseas students in 1980. Through chapters including: Markets and Non-Markets The Institutional Pattern of Provision The Funding of Research The Funding of Student Education Quality Assurance The Impact of Marketisation: Efficiency, diversity and equity; He shows how the evaluation and funding of research, the funding of student education, quality assurance, and the structure of the system have increasingly been organised on market or quasi-market lines. As well as helping to explain the evolution of British higher education over the past thirty years, the book contains some important messages about the consequences of introducing or extending market competition in universities’ core activities of teaching and research. This timely and comprehensive book is essential reading for all academics at University level and anyone involved in Higher Education policy.

As well as helping to explain the evolution of British higher education over the past thirty years, this book contains some important messages about the consequences of introducing or extending market competition in universities' core activities of teaching and research.

Until recently government policy in the UK has encouraged an expansion of Higher Education to increase participation and with an express aim of creating a more educated workforce. This expansion has led to competition between Higher Education institutions, with students increasingly positioned as consumers and institutions working to improve the extent to which they meet ‘consumer demands’. Especially given the latest government funding cuts, the most prevalent outlook in Higher Education today is one of business, forcing institutions to reassess the way they are managed and promoted to ensure maximum efficiency, sales and ‘profits’. Students view the opportunity to gain a degree as a right, and a service which they have paid for, demanding a greater choice and a return on their investment. Changes in higher education have been rapid, and there has been little critical research into the implications. This volume brings together internationally comparative academic perspectives, critical accounts and empirical research to explore fully the issues and experiences of education as a commodity, examining: the international and financial context of marketisation the new purposes of universities the implications of university branding and promotion league tables and student surveys vs. quality of education the higher education market and distance learning students as ‘active consumers’ in the co-creation of value changing student experiences, demands and focus. With contributions from many of the leading names involved in Higher Education including Ron Barnett, Frank Furedi, Lewis Elton, Roger Brown and also Laurie Taylor in his journalistic guise as an academic at the University of Poppleton, this book will be essential reading for many.

Dimensions of Marketisation in Higher Education is a critical analysis of the various dimensions of marketisation in a global context, exploring governance, policy, financial, ethical and pedagogical aspects. Bringing together a selection of influential authors who draw on the work of Roger Brown, the book is a timely examination of the impact that policies regulating cost, entry and practices in higher education can have on universities, students and academics. This book explores the tensions and dilemmas marketisation brings into the educational environment for academic leaders, managers and students, arguing that they can be managed through rebalancing the relation between the market and the educational dimensions. Key topics include: The economics of higher education Students in a marketised environment Regulating a marketised sector Marketisation and higher education pedagogies Universities’ futures. Unveiling nuanced and multifaceted perspectives and providing readers with collective and forward-thinking critical analyses, Dimensions of Marketisation in Higher Education will be an authoritative reference book on policy and practice, appealing to higher education leaders, managers and scholars worldwide.

This edited collection demonstrates how discourses and practices associated with marketisation, differentiation and equality are manifested in UK higher education today. Uniting leading scholars in higher education and equality in England, the contributors and editors expose the contradictions arising from the tension between aims for increased equality and an increasingly marketised higher education. As the authors seek to reveal both the intended and unintended consequences of the intensified marketisation of the sector, they critically examine the implications of these changes. In doing so, they reveal the ways in which institutional policy and discourse are involved in masking the contradictions between an educational marketplace and education as a vehicle for advancing equality and social justice. This pioneering volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of higher education in England, education policy and the marketisation of higher education, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

This book provides an in-depth qualitative report on casualised academic staff in the UK, mapping shared experiences and strategies for resistance. Bringing together testimonial data spanning seven years, it offers evidence of how precarious labour conditions have persisted, shifted and intensified. The book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the fields of education, human resources management, labour studies and sociology, as well as trade unionists and university policymakers.

A critical and deeply informed survey of the brave new world of UK Higher Education emerging from government cuts and market-driven reforms.