From social rights to the market: neoliberalism and the knowledge economy
This paper looks at changing policies for higher education in the United Kingdom and the emergence of a neoliberal knowledge regime. This subordinates higher education to the market and shifts the burden of paying for degree courses onto students. It seeks to stratify institutions and extend the role of for-profit providers. From a role in the amelioration of social inequality, argues Holmwood, universities are now asked to participate actively in the widening inequalities associated with a neoliberal global market-based knowledge economy At the same time, emphasis shifts from the quality of a system of higher education serving diverse needs, to the placing of individual institutions within a rank order of universities in a global market place for education.
Reading Development 