ABSTRACT
Privatization of higher education is closely linked to its expansion: when systems expand, there appears a fundamental question of how to fund them from the public purse. There is only one comparator country in Western Europe with parallel privatization experiences: Portugal, with its huge expansion of the private sector in the 1980s and its gradual decline since the mid-2000s. Following Levy's typology of public-/private mixes in higher education systems, it is analytically useful to view Poland as fitting the fourth pattern. Consistent with the pure types of 'public' and 'private' sectors in Poland, privates have been almost exclusively self-financed. Fee-paying students bring in fees to both sectors. However, their role in the public sector is decreasing, following an enrolment trend of fewer part-time students enrolled every year. Privatization in higher education has different meanings. The author use a distinction between internal and external privatization and define these concepts in terms of funding and provision.
