ABSTRACT
The transformation of the university system from the equivalent of a family business to a massive industry required more than just money. Since those working in the industry were experts in education and not in running a business, they needed to be supervised by those with the requisite skills. This might be resisted in the older universities where academics had long established privileges of self management and autonomy, but in the newer institutions a more rational and efficient system could be installed. The new commercial ethos had transformed for the worse the experience of being a student, the nature of the education they received, the work of those doing the teaching, the life and status of the universities and the value to those who employed their products. The need to protect the excellence of elite universities has begun to force a separation within the system: a divide between traditional, research-based, multi-purpose institutions and those that specialise in mass teaching.
