Higher Education Transformation: Some Trends in California and Asia

Abstract

This article discusses higher education transformation in California, the wider USA, and Asia. It touches on several sensitive topics, including the relationship between higher education and the public good versus commodification, privatization, and centralization versus decentralization, as well as others. In the USA and California, this has led to questions of whether historic conceptions of the ‘public good’ can be sustained within the policy frame it has created. The notion of higher education as a public good, especially for the large public research universities, is also being challenged in the Asia region as the state withdraws from maintaining the levels of financial support it has provided in the past. The author suggests that scholars and practitioners in both Asia and the USA should remain engaged with each other and continue to share policies and practices as their respective higher education institutions seek to develop and grow in the increasingly global knowledge society.