University Autonomy in the Age of Marketization

Abstract

University autonomy (UA) is a means of enabling the higher education (HE) sector to respond effectively to a rapidly changing set of demands from a broad range of stakeholders while ensuring that they fulfill their mission as key components of national innovation systems. Societal expectations include the delivery of highly skilled graduates who will be prepared to serve the demands of the “knowledge economy”; research and development outputs leading to technological innovation and commercial utility; and an attractive learning environment that meets the needs of increasing numbers of domestic and international students. UA can therefore be interpreted as freedom from government interference so that higher education institutions (HEIs) can pursue their own strategic priorities and allocate resources according to their geographical location and market segment. However, since government intervention usually takes the form of providing direct income and a strong regulatory framework, full autonomy of universities might entail both a lighter regulatory environment and more pressure for HEIs to diversify their income streams to make up for reduced direct government funding. This model is generally supported by private sector stakeholders, who see it as a means to open up this area of the public sector to the markets (McGettigan 2014, Lee 2014), and by prestigious HEIs such as many of those belonging to the “Russell Group” (Russell Group 2014), which already show the greatest diversity in revenue sources (McGettigan 2014: 117), and who therefore expect to benefit from these kinds of reforms to the sector (Brown and Carasso 2013). From this perspective, marketization can be seen as an end in itself enabling private providers to capitalize on the deregulation and unbundling of services traditionally provided by public sector universities. It is therefore worth reflecting on the purposes served by UA since this cannot be seen as an end in itself.