ABSTRACT
The United Kingdom is often referred to as one of the first countries, after the US, to introduce market conditions in higher education, and to have gone further than most in developing mechanisms to promote market behavior among higher education institutions, students and other consumers of higher education services. This chapter traces the key trends and policies that have given rise to this view and sets them against the conditions for a higher education market set out in Chapter 2. The first section reviews the nature of institutional autonomy, key government policies and the rapid evolution of markets and market behavior in UK higher education. The following two sections review the core markets in students and research. In the third section I argue that a key element of the UK higher education system is a reputational hierarchy of institutions, and explore how university rankings reinforce this hierarchy. The fourth section examines the development of internal markets within institutions, before the concluding section offers a balance sheet. Finally, I suggest that what is missing from a market-based account of higher education may actually undermine its long-term economic efficiency and contribution to society.
