A New Dynamic: Private Higher Education

Growth and typology1Although Latin America has had more stable, regional PHE shares than Asia, theUnited States epitomizes stable shares, remaining between 20 and 25 per cent fordecades. 4 This share hardly makes the United States a global enrolment leader,though its PHE share goes higher for four-year institutions and soars for graduateeducation, research, funds, impact and prestige.Central and Eastern Europe are the next regions in PHE enrolment shares (Slantchevaand Levy 2007). The growth from zero to substantial in the first half of the 1990s isthe most dramatically concentrated spurt ever seen in any region. Overall highereducation enrolments had been terribly low under Communism, and great demandfor expansion was suddenly unleashed at its collapse. Yet, only a few countries haveever crossed the 30 per cent PHE level (Estonia, Georgia, Latvia and Poland, withEstonia close); a few have declined in PHE shares (Pachuashvili, 2008); and othershave never become more than a few per cent private (Lithuania and Slovakia).Stagnation or only a slight increase in private shares characterized the ten or so yearsafter the initial surge. However, there have been signs of private resiliency in the pastseveral years, rather pronounced in the non-university, college-level sector - thesector which trains professionals and attracts non-traditional students.Staying another moment in Europe before moving to the next-largest region in termsof PHE shares, Western Europe is the striking outlier in regard to PHE expansion andsize. Privatization in West European higher education has mostly been about changesin the finance and management of public institutions. Thus, for example,'entrepreneurial universities' are basically public universities undertaking major reform(Clark, 1998; Wells, Sadlak and Vlasceanu, 2007). Many of the PHE sectors have longbeen largely peripheral (Geiger, 1986). Belgium and especially the Netherlands havehad large PHE shares, but with strong publicness in rules and finance, and are nowsometimes reported as only minimally private. 5 Portugal is a different sort ofexception, 26 per cent private in a largely distinctive sector, and Spain now stands outfor having some academically prominent PHE institutions (De Miguel, Vaquera andSanchez, 2005). The United Kingdom, after creating merely one private university(1981), now has several initiatives to build PHE. 6 But France, Germany, Israel and theUnited Kingdom still fit the regional norm of small private sectors. Finally, Turkey hadearly PHE development but closed down in the 1970s and has emerged anew only4 The rest of the North American region has Canada, with minimal PHE, and Mexico, which we includein the Latin American region.5 Complicating matters more is the tri-sector picture drawn in European data and analysed by GuyNeave (2008). Institutions labeled 'independent' are clearly private, and those labeled public are clearlypublic; however, in between are government-subsidized institutions that may not be functionallyprivate.6 In Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom come prospects of philanthropic pledges by wealthybusinesspersons But Germany mostly reflects a regional (and global) tendency, tied to marketizationand globalization, to maintain PHE institutional proliferation outsides universities, a common but upperendmanifestation is the MBA (Franck and Opitz, 2006).11