Higher Education and the Common Good

Description

In the last half century higher education has moved from the fringe to the centre of society and accumulated a long list of social functions. In the English-speaking world, Europe and much of East Asia more than two thirds of all school students enter tertiary education. Bulging at the seams, universities are fountains of new knowledge, engines of prosperity and innovation, drivers of regional growth, skilled migration and global competitiveness, and makers of equality of opportunity. Yet they can do little to stop growing income inequality, and in the English-speaking countries, government rhetoric and policy economics have narrowed their purpose to that of sorting careers for the middle class, partly to justify the rise in tuition fees. Higher education systems have become more competitive and stratified, with value more concentrated at the top, and the collective public benefits of universities are underplayed and underfunded. In short, governments expect both too much and too little of higher education, and its contribution to the common good is being eroded. Yet universities are much much more than factories for graduate earnings. Higher Education and the Common Good argues that this sector has a key role in rebuilding social solidarity and mobility in fractured societies. Title Copyright Contents Figures Tables Preface Part I: Historical sociology of higher education 1. Great expectations 2. High participation and social inclusion 3. Anglo-American higher education and inequality Part II: Political economy of higher education 4. Public and private goods in higher education 5. Public goods and public good 6. Limits of human capital theory 7. Limits of capitalist markets in higher education 8. Limits of global university ranking Part III: Positional competition and the common good 9. Diversity, stratification and equity 10. The case of Australia 11. Conclusion References Index