Res

In Palfreyman & Tapper (2014) ‘Reshaping the University: The Rise of the Regulated Market in Higher Education’ (Oxford University Press) we have tried to explain how English HE has reached the present state of massification & marketisation, of commodification & commercialisation, of managerialism & corporatism. We predict that hefty tuition fees, student consumerism, and the market are here to stay, with universities adjusting and reshaping accordingly (or going bust!) – but also with there being an urgent need for a ‘Higher Education Act 2016’ (or so) to provide more effective regulation of this market and much greater consumer protection for the student. And all this complex process of national change goes on in the swirling context of (inter alia): the increasing globalisation of HE, the branding of elite HEIs via the global rankings and leaguetables, the potential threat of disruptive innovation in the form of MOOCs, and the likelihood of the newly-emerging for-profit providers of HE forcing the traditional public HEIs into fierce pricecompetition (to the ultimate benefit of the student-consumer and also of the taxpayer otherwise left writing-off approaching 50% of the £200b (in 2013 £s) of student debt by the early-2040s!).