Colin McCaig

We know higher education is more than effective teaching and learning. This series examine the issues impacting HE providers, students, reputations and longevity of institutions across the world. Great Debates are just that - discussions designed to assess and evaluate the state of higher education systems, policies as well as social and economic impacts looking at inclusivity, accessibility, safety and leadership. These topics resonate with students, researchers and HE administrators alike. Titles included in this set: Teaching Excellence in Higher Education:Challenges, Changes and the Teaching Excellence Framework; British Universities in the Brexit Moment:Political, Economic and Cultural Implications; Higher Education Funding and Access in International Perspective; Sexual Violence on Campus:Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response; Evaluating Scholarship and Research Impact:History, Practices, and Policy Development; Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education:A Curate's Egg?; The Marketisation of English Higher Education:A Policy Analysis of a Risk-Based System; Refugees in Higher Education:Debate, Discourse and Practice; Radicalisation and Counter-Radicalisation in Higher Education; Perspectives on Access to Higher Education:Practice and Research; Cultural Journeys in Higher Education:Student Voices and Narratives; Degendering Leadership in Higher Education;

This book traces the development of a fully marketised higher education system in England over a 30-year period, and identifies five distinct stages of market reforms culminating in the Higher Education and Research Act (HMSO, 2017). The Act shifted the risks of institutional failure (and the prospect of market exit) onto applicants, presenting them with ever more applicant choice information and encouraging them to use their consumer behaviour to oblige weaker providers’ lower tuition fees or lose market share to new competitors. The new regulatory regime represents a marked departure from previous attempts to introduce market dynamism into the sector and places the English HE system at the forefront of a global trend of system marketisation. The book employs a critical policy discourse analysis and addresses several key aspects of the current higher education policy landscape. It considers the extent to which there been a continuity of policy from the encouragement of efficiencies and accountability in the 1980s to the emphasis on competition and risk in 2017; whether the marketisation process is designedly cumulative or has developed in response to factors beyond the control of policymakers; and what the English case can tell us about the nature of neoliberalism and the future trajectories of other national systems in the process of marketising and differentiating their institutions.