A summary of the drivers and approaches to higher education as a public and private good in the framework for analysis indicates that, as narratives promoting greater competition between institutions have unfolded, those concerning higher education as a social good, offering collective benefits for society as a whole, have moved towards higher education as a private good, principally offering individual benefits. As Marginson (2007) observes, national policy plays an important role in shaping perspectives on the purpose of higher education:
Higher education institutions are more or less ‘public’ and ‘private’ according to the policy and funding configuration chosen for them. In turn, that configuration always rests on one
Another tangible indicator of Government positions on the purpose of higher education is its policies on student finance, in particular whether the student should pay. Whilst the messages of 1987 and 1991 demonstrate that higher education was still seen, primarily, as a state responsibility, they nevertheless highlight the need for more efficiency, economy and transparency in the use of public funds. This narrative continued and intensified under the New Labour Government, beginning with the introduction of fees for domestic students studying for full-time undergraduate education and then using the 2003 White Paper to argue for variable fees up to a raised maximum. At the same time, the 2003 policy motifs of social justice and fairness align closely with the idea of higher education as a force for social good. Although the 2003 White Paper was at pains to present an ideal model of higher education offering collective and
individual benefits, the tensions between these ideas were not fully
acknowledged. Furthermore, the introduction of tuition fees at the end of the 1990s, and then a higher maximum level in 2006, placed individual benefits at the forefront during the New Labour era.
By 2011, the individual benefits of higher education were a dominant feature of Government policy. As Shattock (2012) suggests, while the student finance policies of 2011 could be interpreted as a straightforward fiscal policy, they illustrate a broader ideological shift that took place between 1987 and 2012:
Another representation would be to see them [the 2011 financial reforms] as a slow reversal, except in Scotland, of the view, strongly held in 1945-46, that the provision of
opportunities for higher education was a public rather than a private good for which the state must, therefore, be responsible (pp. 155-156).
The more substantial narratives on marketisation and competition in the 2011 White Paper parallel the later policy articulations of social mobility. In particular, the concern for the individual and his or her advancement by way of the more selective universities and the high-status professions point strongly to the idea of higher education as a predominantly private good. Under conditions of global fiscal crisis and subsequent policies of retrenchment and austerity, the narratives
promoting the role of higher education in social mobility take on additional significance. As Collini (2012) argues:
Universities are increasingly being expected to be instruments of social mobility, as society’s bad conscience about entrenched inequalities seeks solace from misleading metaphors about ‘level playing fields’ that allow it to pretend that expanded
recruitment to higher education can be a substitute for real structural change to the distribution of wealth in society (p. 92).
Indeed, such is the policy work required of social mobility that it has taken on the function of a condensation symbol. In official policy contexts, social mobility is used to draw together complex and often contradictory ideas about society and the economy while enjoying a broad appeal across the political spectrum. Although the notion of widening participation performed similar functions in 2003, its symbolism and general appeal do not appear to have been as powerful as social mobility. Alternatively, social mobility has become an important
Government vision featuring extensively in equity debates, not just about higher education. In a similar way to how the implicit ideas of equality of opportunity, meritocracy and fairness have been naturalised, so too has social mobility, although (this time) as an explicit policy motif with its own sets of associated ideas.
Although a lifecycle approach to mobility invites a more holistic view of social opportunity and mobility, the most selective universities, in particular, are under increasing pressure to play a part in mediating and mitigating the effects of deepening inequality. In this context, policy attention since 2011 has turned to widening participation in postgraduate study, with new funding initiatives being framed as ‘good for students, good for universities and good for the economy’ (HEFCE, 2013). Expressions of access-participation-mobility in the sphere of higher education policy, therefore, continue to construct higher education as a private good serving, first and foremost, an economic function, which benefits the individual. However, a preoccupation with individual benefits is likely to be in tension with a lifecycle approach, which seeks to resolve social inequalities comprehensively and collectively. Equally, the prospect of downward movement and the issue of displacement are rarely addressed within policy articulations of
tensions and omissions create ambiguities in policy expressions of social mobility, further highlighting its important role as a condensation symbol in the core texts.