Introduction

Abstract

Once an élite system dealing with a privileged few, UK universities now have to deal with the challenges of educating many more students. State funding per student has become constrained as the country has struggled to control the increases in costs that the expanded number of students entails. Semiautonomous* universities are therefore looking for revenue streams to bolster increasingly restricted government funding. Two particular issues have emerged as responses to resource constraint as universities and the state have grappled with generating revenue and controlling costs: internationalization and private sector involvement. Both of these are considered here in order to illustrate the context of the theme articles contained in this issue of Public Money & Management.

* Universities have a level of autonomy but reliance on government funding constrains their autonomy (Broadbent, 2011). This is manifest in a variety of ways, but particularly in control of undergraduate student numbers, limiting the number of home and European Union students that a university can recruit.

Keywords:

• Globalization of HE
• higher education (HE)
• HE marketization
• HE reforms
• internationalization
• private providers of HE
• resource constraints

Notes

* Universities have a level of autonomy but reliance on government funding constrains their autonomy (Broadbent, 2011). This is manifest in a variety of ways, but particularly in control of undergraduate student numbers, limiting the number of home and European Union students that a university can recruit.

* University funding arrangements are far more complex than this brief outline suggests, but this explanation deals with the key aspects that impinge upon the arguments in this article.

* This is not to suggest agreement with this rationale, but simply to indicate the logical line of this argument. It is interesting to observe that several other continental European countries have since followed suit in charging higher fees to non-EU students (than to domestic students), albeit not as high as in the UK.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane Broadbent

Jane Broadbent is Professor of Accounting, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK and Editor of Public Money & Management.

Robin Middlehurst

Robin Middlehurst is Professor of Higher Education, Kingston University, London.