The Private Fit in the Higher Education Landscape

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship of private higher education to several of the main topics highlighted in this Handbook, including access, graduate education, research and scholarship, the academic profession, and globalization. Obviously, variations by region, country, and type of private higher education can be only sporadically sketched in such a brief essay. Thus, this chapter will at best provide an introductory sense of how generalizations about higher education fit—or need to be adapted—when it comes to higher education’s private sector. Particular attention is given to tendencies of higher education change, outlining whether the private sector adapts to that change or even leads it in certain crucial respects. Overall, due to its large and increasing share of total enrollments, the private sector must be reckoned with in any work attempting to deal with higher education overall. (For further general sources on private higher education, see http://www.albany.edu/~prophe, including its background paper and Levy (2002), and see Altbach (1999), Levy (1992), and the extensive bibliography: Maldonado, Cao, Altbach, Levy, and Zhu (2004)).