Private higher education

Among the chief characteristics of the post‐industrial society are ambiguity and paradox. In Australian higher education, as in other sectors of Australian Society, these have found expression in individualism, private initiative and entrepreneuship. The ‘privatization’ of higher education now includes the imposition on enrolment charges, the re‐introduction of ‘full cost’ fees, especially for private overseas students, moves towards the deregulation of salaries and conditions of employment of academic staff and the establishment of new ‘self‐contained’ and ‘hybrid’ private higher education institutions. In response to these developments, debate has tended to centre upon a number of mythologies which inter alia assert that private higher education is new to Australia, that it is foreign to the Western academic tradition and that such education avoids the employment of public funds. Moreover, it is claimed that while private higher education is ipso facto elitist, it will, through competition, result in a more effective and efficient public sector. The above mythologies are examined in the light of past, present and proposed developments in Australian higher education, with particular note being taken of the establishment of the Bond University in Queensland

Ambiguity · Competition (biology · De facto · Deregulation · Economic growth · Economics · Higher education · Individualism · Market economy · Mythology · Political science · Private education · Private sector · Sociology · Higher Education and Employability · Higher Education Governance and Development · Human Resource and Talent Management · Law · Public Administration