Dynamics of National and Global Competition in Higher Education |
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| Authors: | Simon Marginson |
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| Institution: | (1) Monash Centre for Research in International Education, Monash University, VIC 3168 Clayton, Australia |
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| Abstract: | The paper explores the dynamics of competition in higher education. National competition and global competition are distinct,
but feed into each other. Higher education produces ‘positional goods’ (Hirsch 1976) that provide access to social prestige
and income-earning. Research universities aim to maximise their status as producers of positional goods. This status is a
function of student selectivity plus research performance. At system-level competition bifurcates between exclusivist elite
institutions that produce highly value positional goods, where demand always exceeds supply and expansion is constrained to
maximise status; and mass institutions (profit and non-profit) characterised by place-filling and expansion. Intermediate
universities are differentiated between these poles. In global competition, the networked open information environment has
facilitated (1) the emergence of a world-wide positional market of elite US/UK universities; and (2) the rapid development
of a commercial mass market led by UK and Australian universities. Global competition is vectored by research capacity. This
is dominated by English language, especially US universities, contributing to the pattern of asymmetrical resources and one-way
global flows. The paper uses Australia as its example of system segmentation and global/national interface. It closes by reflecting
on a more balanced global distribution of capacity. |
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| Keywords: | Australia competition globalisation internationalization markets |
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