ABSTRACT
It appears that everywhere there is a trend towards ‘marketisation’ (Williams 1995). Higher education systems are being liberalised, with private ‘for profit’ providers entering and competing with publicly funded and private ‘not for profit’ ones. Tuition fees are being introduced or raised so that students and their families are bearing an increasing share of the costs of teaching. Maintenance grants are being supplemented with, or replaced by, loans. Institutional rankings and other aids to consumer choice are proliferating whilst universities and colleges devote increasing resources and energy to marketing and branding. In short, the market is coming to dominate what Burton Clark many years ago called the ‘triangle of coordination’ (Clark 1983), at the expense of the academy and the state.
