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Social Sciences
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Access to Higher Education in Competitive Marketplaces: A Critical Appraisal...
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Access to Higher Education in Competitive Marketplaces: A Critical Appraisal of Policy Aims to Reconcile Equality of Opportunity and Marketisation

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2019) | Viewed by 15763

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Colin McCaig

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre for Development and Research in Education, Sheffield Hallam University, Arundel Building, City Campus, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK
Interests: higher education policy; political economy; widening participation; marketisation; inequalities of access to higher education
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Marion Bowl

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Interests: adult and community education; lifelong learning; informal and non-formal education; post-compulsory education; widening access to higher education; teaching and learning in tertiary and higher education; participatory research methods and approaches; gender and adult education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are seeking submissions to this exciting Special Issue of the journal Social Sciences. This initial call is for interested scholars and researchers to submit short abstracts (of 250 words, by 1st February 2019) from which authors will be selected to submit full papers (5–8000 words) by late summer 2019, with an expected publication date of Autumn 2019, approximately two months after submission of final manuscripts.

Since the 1970s, higher education has been influenced and re-shaped by neoliberalism, which advocates the application of market principles to areas which were formerly regarded as being in the public domain. While there are differences in view over the extent to which higher education operates as a ‘pure’ market or a ‘quasi-market’ or whether it simply displays ‘market-like’ features, the reality of marketisation is beyond dispute, and its impact on higher education institutions (HEIs), their staff and students—and the relationships between them—has been profound. This call is specifically aimed at identifying instances of neoliberal marketisation that have impacted on equalities (or inequalities) of access. It acknowledges that such effects have played out differently in different national and regional territories (Bowl, McCaig and Hughes 2018), dependent on the specifics of historical, political and cultural contexts. Therefore, while we welcome theoretical analyses of neoliberal marketisation as a social and economic phenomenon, we are particularly interested in examining the relationship between national context and policy pressures to marketise HE systems.

Prof. Colin McCaig
Dr. Marion Bowl
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • marketisation of higher education
  • neoliberalism
  • higher education reforms
  • social justice
  • social mobility
  • inequality of access
  • equality of access
  • widening participation policy
  • consumerism
  • tuition fees

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 245 KiB  
Article
Massification, Marketisation and Loss of Differentiation in Pre-Entry Marketing Materials in UK Higher Education
by Elizabeth Knight
Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(11), 304; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8110304 - 30 Oct 2019
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5973
Abstract
Since the mid-1970s, the higher education system in the UK has massified. Over this period, the government policy drivers for higher education have shifted towards a homogenised rationale, linking higher education to the economic well-being of the country. The massification of higher education [...] Read more.
Since the mid-1970s, the higher education system in the UK has massified. Over this period, the government policy drivers for higher education have shifted towards a homogenised rationale, linking higher education to the economic well-being of the country. The massification of higher education has involved a widening of participation from traditional students to new and diverse student cohorts with differing information needs. The increased positioning of students as consumers by higher education means the student choice process has become complex. Drawing on a recently conferred doctorate, this article asks whether the messages sent by institutions about the motivation for undertaking a degree have changed during the recent period of massification of UK higher education. It asks how such changes are reflected, overtly or in coded form, in the institutional pre-entry ‘prospectus’ documents aimed at students. Taking a discourse-historical approach, the work identifies six periods of discourse change between 1976 and 2013, analysing prospectuses from four case-study institutions of different perceived status. The research finds that the materials homogenise gradually over the period and there is a concordant concealment of the differential status, purpose and offer of the institutions, alongside an increase in the functional importance of the coded signalling power of the differential prestige of undergraduate degrees within the UK. This research’s finding that the documents produced by institutions have become increasingly difficult to differentiate highlights equity issues in provision of marketing in terms of widening participation and fair access aims. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access to Higher Education in Competitive Marketplaces: A Critical Appraisal of Policy Aims to Reconcile Equality of Opportunity and Marketisation)
13 pages, 244 KiB  
Article
Troublesome Access: Non-Admission Experiences in the Competitive Finnish Higher Education
by Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret
Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(11), 302; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8110302 - 29 Oct 2019
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3954
Abstract
In this study, I address policy aims to reconcile equality of opportunity and marketization by examining difficulties in access to Finnish higher education. Finnish higher education is largely funded by the state and has no tuition fees. However, new demands have arisen that [...] Read more.
In this study, I address policy aims to reconcile equality of opportunity and marketization by examining difficulties in access to Finnish higher education. Finnish higher education is largely funded by the state and has no tuition fees. However, new demands have arisen that align with market-driven policy. At the same time, the Finnish system is one of the most competitive systems in the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD), and around 70% of applicants do not gain admittance. The purpose of this study is to examine how prospective degree students who have applied without being allowed to start studying toward a degree respond to the loss of opportunity and position themselves in the higher education marketplace. The analysis is based on 50 online narratives. The results are elaborated into three exploratory story models: (1) ‘Never give up on your dreams’; (2) ‘Need to figure out a new plan’; and (3) ‘You can’t get everything you want in life’. The stories show that marketization of higher education affects the experiences and expectations of prospective students. Moreover, marketization offers opportunities differently for those who already have plenty of resources to compete for access to higher education and those who do not. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access to Higher Education in Competitive Marketplaces: A Critical Appraisal of Policy Aims to Reconcile Equality of Opportunity and Marketisation)
13 pages, 548 KiB  
Article
Higher Education, Widening Access and Market Failure: Towards a Dual Pricing Mechanism in England
by Colin McCaig and Nicola Lightfoot
Soc. Sci. 2019, 8(10), 268; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8100268 - 23 Sep 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5314
Abstract
Over a period of around fifteen years English higher education has become characterised by an increasingly marketise and differentiated system, most recently with the encouragement of new “challenger” providers potentially creating price competition for undergraduate degrees. This paper explores shifting patterns of enrolments [...] Read more.
Over a period of around fifteen years English higher education has become characterised by an increasingly marketise and differentiated system, most recently with the encouragement of new “challenger” providers potentially creating price competition for undergraduate degrees. This paper explores shifting patterns of enrolments between different institution types (those requiring high entry grades and those requiring lower entry grades) for evidence of how these types may be responding to the new market conditions. We introduce the concept of a “dual-pricing” mechanism to model how different institution types may be reacting. Dual pricing would be exemplified as a situation where entry requirements (a “price” based on qualification tariff points required for entry) and tuition-fee are matched in a linear hierarchy of institutions: Only the most prestigious institutions offering the courses demanding the highest entry qualifications (tariff) would command the highest fee (in this case a maxima of £9250 per annum), with fees demanded by institutions requiring lower entry requirements tapering off towards £6000 per year. This dual-pricing mechanism is discussed here as a policy aim, and the intention of this paper is to locate it in relation to market failure (defined as the failing of a market intervention to meet that policy aim). This paper’s critique of the marketised direction of travel in English higher education (HE) policymaking is that a dual-price mechanism would seriously undermine efforts to widen access for underrepresented social groups, particularly those from low income households who may be more likely to access low-cost provision rather than more transformative HE opportunities (supposedly those deriving from having a degree from a more prestigious institution), even if they met the entry requirements for higher-cost provision. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access to Higher Education in Competitive Marketplaces: A Critical Appraisal of Policy Aims to Reconcile Equality of Opportunity and Marketisation)
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