ABSTRACT
The support for public funding of higher education is dependent upon a range of variables that vary in importance both over time, and from one national setting to another. Political decisions were made to effect that, if there was to be higher education expansion, it had to be achieved through private rather than public funding. A key consideration in the relationship between the university and the market is how much independence the higher education institutions have in forging that relationship. In a world marked by increased demands upon public purse and a stronger recognition of higher education as a private good, the university finds itself more isolated politically in part because the social democratic impulse has itself changed. People are experiencing a time in which the university has a greater need to justify its public funding; it is no longer something that it can take more or less for granted.
