Two Continents Divided by the Same Trends? Reflections about Marketization, Competition, and Inequality in European Higher Education

Abstract

Abstract It is not rare to read positive comments about North American higher education from higher education stakeholders in Europe, particularly policy-makers and institutional managers. The aspects of the system which are most often praised are the degree of institutional competition and the benefits this brings in terms of institutional flexibility, responsiveness, and adaptability. Moreover, those voices also enhance the resourcefulness of North American higher education institutions in finding alternative sources of funding to cope with the steady decline in public funding. In recent decades European higher education has felt the impact of the aforementioned trends and the effects have been not altogether dissimilar from the ones identified in North American higher education. Moreover, the growing integration of European higher education systems has also contributed to enhance some convergence with some of the trends identified in the American case. In this paper, we reflect on the impact of the increasing marketization of funding and governance mechanisms on the European higher education landscape and compare it with the impact of those trends discussed in the papers by Irwin Feller and George W. Breslauer.