ABSTRACT
This introduction presents the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how the concept of the student has altered over time. It argues that higher education can best be understood as a relatively stable discursive system and that the history of higher education is primarily a struggle for discursive hegemony and thus a fight over the meaning of terms like 'higher education' and 'student'. The book provides a short overview of the development of British higher education from the foundation of Oxford until the early decades of the twentieth century. It concentrates on the two central government papers of the early 1960s: the Anderson Report, which recommended the introduction of maintenance grants, and the Robbins Report, which argued for a further expansion of higher education. The book examines in detail various criticisms of marketisation as well as attempts to formulate new ideas of higher education that go beyond the market.
