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Tag: Neoliberalism

Measurement and Management at Universities (Neoliberalism Part 4)

To date, we have looked at market mechanisms and competition in universities and shown that a) they aren’t in fact all that neo-liberal and b) particularly with respect to expanding access, there are some upsides.  Today I want to look at two other facets of modern universities that often get described as neo-liberal: performance data and management. There is some variety in the way this topic is approached – see this blog from the London School of Economics (h/t to Marc Spooner for pointing me to

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November 23, 2017 4 Comments

Universities and Competition (Neoliberalism Part 3)

One of the key accusations about universities and neoliberalism is that the system is too obsessed with competition.  On the face of it, this looks like the easiest argument to make about neoliberal universities: neoliberal thought does put a lot of emphasis on competition, and institutions do talk a lot about “competing” for students and staff and governments like the notion that institutions “compete” against one another.  Among faculty members, institutions “compete” for research funding; in some countries, they literally compete

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November 22, 2017 No Comments

Universities and the Market (Neoliberalism Part 2)

Yesterday I talked about how the notion of neo-liberal universities was based on four concepts: greater use of market mechanisms, increased use of competitions, the role of performance data and, more broadly, the question of institutional management.  Today I’m going to look at the first and maybe more important of those issues: are universities subject to greater market mechanisms now than they were before?  Are there universities in other parts of the world which are not subject to the same

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November 21, 2017 3 Comments

What People Mean When They Talk About Neoliberal Univesities: Part 1

The term “neoliberal university” gets bandied around a lot.  But what does it mean? Neoliberalism is hard to write about sensibly because there’s a lack of basic agreement about what the term means. This isn’t just about yahoos using “neoliberal” as a synonym for “The Man” or “something I happen to dislike” (though that does happen a lot); even those who want to write about the subject are faced with some real problems in defining it. The definition of any

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November 20, 2017 6 Comments

Tuition: Walking and Chewing Gum Simultaneously

Since we’re talking tuition this week, I thought I’d take an opportunity to tee off on one of the weakest arguments out there on this subject.  You know, the one that goes like this: Higher Education is a Public Good Public Goods should be free Yay, free tuition. There are actually two responses to this argument, one narrow and one broad. The narrow argument is that in economic terms the first premise is wrong and hence the second and third

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October 19, 2017 6 Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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