Inside Higher Ed: ‘Privatization and Public Universities’
The cover of Privatization and Public Universities features a brick campus wall with a “For Sale” sign taped to it. The collection of essays arrives from Indiana University Press at a time that many fear that public universities and their values may indeed be for sale — as states pull back from their role providing both funds and leadership for public higher education. Two scholars of higher education — Edward P. St. John of the University of Michigan and Douglas M. Priest of Indiana University — edited the collection and answered questions about its themes.
Q: What is your definition of “privatization” and why are tuition rates so key to your concept of privatization?
A: We assert that public universities have been affected by shifting state priorities. In response, public institutions are instituting many private sector methods of revenue generation and financial management in hope of maintaining, if not improving, their academic reputations. This plays out in the shift in funding from tax dollars to tuition revenue, a trend in public higher education since the early 1980s, which has been the best indicator of the transition to a private college model within public universities, especially for financial operations. The chapters in our book address different aspects of this transition. In one chapter, Don Heller examines changes in state funding of public colleges and student aid. In another Don Hossler considers how institutions manage tuition charges and student grants to improve tuition revenue. Other forms of privatization are also examined by the authors, including: the increased emphasis on generation of private capital through formation of private corporations and patents, a topic addressed by Josh Powers; the development of e-learning systems as commercial enterprises, the focus of Jim Farmer’s chapter; and the increased use of private corporations to provide university services, the focus of a chapter by Priest, Jacobs, and Boon. Similar to private colleges, public universities must contend with commercialization of research and contracting of services, but they are also adjusting to basic changes in their financial operations and marketing strategies as a consequence of rising tuition.
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