ABSTRACT
Private universities are some of the oldest academic institutions in the world, but they were few or practically nonexistent in some countries. However, this has changed during the past 40–50 years. Deregulation of “ownership” of universities in most parts of the world during the past 50 years has created an entrepreneurial opportunity which has led into an “explosion” of private nonprofit and private-for-profit universities around the world. This chapter examines this trend and discusses the advantages and disadvantages which come with this entrepreneurial opportunity.
The argument for “deregulation” of tertiary education especially in developing countries is that the status quo in which public universities “monopolize” access to university education was elitist, and that deregulation breaks that “hold” of exclusivity. However, this argument is not necessarily true in every developing country. Whether deregulation breaks a stronghold or dilutes the quality of university education in many developing countries is still an ongoing debate.
To appreciate the argument for and against privatization, it is important to examine the evidence at country-level instead of focusing on a general macro-level theoretical argument. Hence, we discuss randomly selected studies from different countries. In the end, with a deeper appreciation for the issue, the question we ought to be able to answer is how can universities use this privatization trend to market themselves?
