Exploratory Essay: The Role Of State In The Contemporary Higher Education

The progress of contemporary society and fast development of technology along with the persisting economic inequality raises the question of the availability of education to all students, regardless of their socioeconomic background. The existing system of the higher education still fails to eliminate barriers on the way to the higher education to students from low-income families. In such a situation, some researchers (Labaree 75) insist on the necessity of the introduction of the stricter government regulation and control over the higher education and universities to provide the wider access for all students to the higher education. However, such suggestions raise the question of the effectiveness of such model of the higher education. Moreover, the question that begs is whether the government should play the determinant part in the higher education or not and what should be the role of the state in the contemporary higher education. In actuality, the government needs to enhance its role in the higher education to make it more inclusive, but, at the same time, the government should preserve the autonomy of universities and encourage the wider community involvement in the inclusion of all students into the higher education and provision of all students with the possibility of obtaining the higher education.

In this regard, debates vary from the total rejection of any government interference or control over the higher education to the establishment of strict and full control over the higher education that could potentially provide equal access to all students to the higher education through the elimination of financial barriers for students from low-income families. The problem of the contemporary higher education is that universities are concerned with their revenues and tuition fees become too high along with overall cost of the higher education. In such a situation, the increased role of the state in the higher education could involve the state funding of universities or sponsorship of programs that could provide students with the wider access to the higher education. However, this approach raises a strong opposition from the larger part of society because such changes would destroy the traditional model of the higher education that has been adopted and existed in the US for decades.

The main problem of the contemporary higher education is still its availability for all students. The unequal access to the higher education that still persists makes it a privilege, while the change of the model of the higher education raises the question of the government role in the higher education because universities are not ready for drastic changes at the moment. At any rate, they still cannot provide the equal access to all students to make the higher education a public good rather than a privilege as it is now. Therefore, some researchers (Kors & Silverglate 410) suggest that the state should increase its role in the higher education to help students from low-income families to get equal access to education, but such changes may involve changes in the existing higher education system.

At the moment, there are four models of the higher education with regard to the role the state plays in it (Goodman, et al., 4). First, there is the Napoleonic or the Imperial University model, which establishes the system of the direct state control over the higher education and universities. This model became popular in Southern Europe and Latin America. Second, there is the Humboldtian model, which places the university as the center of knowledge advancement in the unity of teaching and research with the independence of universities of the government interference. Third, there is the British model, which involves the institutional autonomy of universities and the higher education of the government regulation and control. Fourth, there is the ‘market-driven’ university model, which is adopted in the US and implies the combination of the three aforementioned models, including service of the higher education to the national economy, independence of research and the use of the student-centered approach in liberal arts (Goodman, et al., 11).

The British and, to a significant extent, the US model of the higher education implies the high autonomy of universities that means minimal or no government interference or control over their performance.            However, today, researchers (Levin 142) trace the enhancement of the government interference and control over the higher education that raises the problem of the preservation of the traditional autonomy of universities and the independence of the higher education of the government at large. The increased role of the state in the higher education derives from objective needs of the contemporary society, when the exclusion of a part of society from the access to the higher education provokes the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, which becomes synonymous to the disparity between educated and uneducated. The government cannot ignore the persisting disparity and its negative impact on the social stability. The inclusion of all students into the learning process and the provision of all students with the equal access to the higher education is not just the matter of the social stability but also the matter of the competitiveness of the nation in the global economic environment.

On the other hand, the university autonomy is essential for the maintenance of the effective development of universities and their progress and research and scientific centers. Enders and colleagues (8), who studied the Dutch experience of the university autonomy have coined the concept of the regulatory autonomy, which implies the introduction of government regulations in regard to the higher education, which universities should comply with, although they preserve their autonomy. Regulatory autonomy thus aims at aligning universities more closely with governmental goals and improve respective performance (Enders, et al., 8).

However, there is scarce, inconclusive and methodologically problematic evidence for a link between ‘organizational autonomy and performance’ (Enders, et al., 9). At this point, it is possible to refer to the experience of the US, where universities traditionally have the large autonomy but they also meet objective needs of the US economy because the US uses the market-driven model of the higher education, when the market actually determines the development of the higher education. However, the US also face the problem of the limited access to the higher education that raises the question of the introduction of the regulatory autonomy or larger involvement of the government in the higher education to ensure the wider access of all students to the higher education.

In this regard, the main question is whether the higher education should be still a privilege or a public good available to all. The preservation of status quo in the contemporary higher education leads to the exclusion of students from low-income families and makes the higher education a privilege. The expansion of the government regulation, control and funding of the higher education could potentially eliminate those financial barriers and provide all students with the equal access to the higher education. However, the main question of such a change of the state role in the higher education is the extent of the government interference and regulation of the higher education. In this regard, the government interference should not be excessive but reasonable and match needs of students, who cannot access the higher education without the external support, from the part of the government. Hence, the reasonable solution to the current problem of the lack of the access to the higher education could involve the limited government interference through the funding of programs for students, who cannot afford the higher education financially and need financial support. Government-sponsored programs could focus on the financial support of low-income students that could enter universities, but the government should not interfere into university policies or limit their current autonomy, unless university policies create unequal, unfair or discriminatory conditions for students learning.

At the same time, Muller-Christ and colleagues (135) go beyond the mere debate of the university-government relationships and introduce another stakeholder in the development of the contemporary higher education, the university community. The researchers (Muller-Christ, et al., 136) develop the idea of the university community as the driver of the development of local communities.

However, in such context, it is possible to suggest that local communities may also contribute to the higher education through the development of their own programs to support community members in need to provide them with the possibility of accessing the higher education. Local communities can potentially replace the federal government and create their own programs to sponsor the higher education for students from low-income families. They may elaborate criteria for the eligibility of students and provide them with an opportunity to obtain the higher education, even if they cannot afford it on their own.

Nevertheless, the government policy is still important in this regard, because the government is the national entity that can shape the framework for the development of the higher education, in terms of which students may students may get a wider access to the higher education. In other words, the state should change its role as a non-interfering entity, but, instead, the government should create legal and economic conditions for the wider enrollment of students into the higher education to make it the public good rather than a mere privilege (Marchese 118). Such new state-university relationship will be beneficial not only for students and higher education but also for the national economy and society at large. The higher education should become available to the public good available to all students.

Benefits of the higher education are obvious and, in the contemporary society, higher education cannot be just the private matter of universities or the matter of the total government control. Instead, the higher education is the public matter that serves to interests of the entire society (Massy 182). This is why both private and public interests coincide in terms of the development of the higher education and making it more available to all students. In such a situation, the role of the government in the contemporary higher education should increase to make it more available to all students (Marginson 139). At the same time, the government should avoid excessive interference or control over universities to stimulate the free, independent development of research and science. In this regard, the prospective direction for the development of the higher education is the wider involvement of local communities in the development of educational programs and programs that aim at helping students from low-income families to get access to the higher education.

The overall increase of the educational level of Americans will contribute to the further growth of the competitiveness of the US economy in the world market. This is why the accessibility of the higher education and progress of the higher education contribute to the progress of the national economy and, thus, potentially contribute to the improvement of wellbeing of Americans. The better quality and accessibility of the higher education gives the US larger opportunities for taking the advantageous position in the world economy and the maintenance of the social stability within society (Mangan 172). At any rate, the higher education cannot be a privilege anymore because the lack of access to the higher education and the lack of the government attention to this problem leads to the growing socioeconomic disparity in the US. Students from low-income families cannot receive the higher education and are doomed to live in poverty. As a result, their position becomes desperate, while gaps between the rich and the poor grow wider that increases the risk of the large scale social conflict, when the poor cannot afford their desperate position anymore and may try to change the existing social order to take a better social standing and get wider access to benefits available to upper-classes at the moment.  The higher education may become the tool that will close gaps between Americans that persist now because better education provides better employment opportunities. Better employment opportunities open the way for the overall improvement of the quality of life and elimination of poverty or, at least, partial solution to the problem of poverty.

Therefore, the government role in the higher education should increase to ensure the equal of all students to the higher education. In this regard, the government has multiple tools from the introduction of legal norms to prevent cases of discrimination to government-sponsored programs to ensure that students from low-income families can afford learning at universities. On the other hand, the government should not restrict the development of universities by imposing strict regulations that could interfere in the governance or management of universities and their development as autonomous entities, as they always were in the US (Walter & DiMaggio 186). The existing US model is quite effective because it is market-driven and, therefore, open for the progressive development and service to actual needs of students and the public. However, the current autonomy of universities still is profit-oriented, when the profitability of the higher education becomes the priority for universities, which leaves students from low-income families aside. As a result, universities are not interested into the involvement of such students. This is why it is only the state or local community support that can make universities to admit such students and make the higher education affordable for them. The main problem is not the position of universities or unwillingness of universities to enroll students from low-income families, but the problem is the high costs of the higher education, which such students cannot afford. Universities will not cover costs of their education that is quite natural. This is why it is the government that should take responsibility for such students and provide them with equal opportunities to obtain the higher education.

Works Cited:

Enders, J., et al. Regulatory autonomy and performance: the reform of higher education re-visited, Higher Education, 65(1), 2012, 5-23.

Goodman, R. et al., Higher Education and the State: Changing relationships in Europe and East Asia. Oxford: Symposium Books, 2013.

Kors, A.C. and Silverglate, Harvey. The Shadow University, New York: The Free Press, 2014.

Labaree, David F. Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational Goals, American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 1997, 39-81.

Levin, J.S. Instruments of the global marketplace: Alterations to mission and structures in the community college, Working Paper, University of Arizona, 1999.

Mangan, Katherine S, U.S. Students Flocking to For-Profit Colleges for Business Degrees, Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 September, 1999.

Marchese, Ted. Not-So Distant-Competitors: How New Providers are Remaking the Postsecondary Marketplace, AAHE Bulletin, May/ June 1998.

Marginson, Simon. Markets in Education, Melbourne: Allen & Unwin, 2014.

Massy, W.F. Productivity in higher education, in Resource Allocation in Higher Education, William F. Massy, (ed.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.

Muller-Christ, G., et al. The role of campus, curriculum, and community in higher education for sustainable development – a conference report, Journal of Cleaner Production, 62(1), 2014, 134-137

Walter W. and Paul DiMaggio. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

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