Current UK higher education is totally commercialized, but it causes some concerns among scholars, because comercialization could be restricted in terms of tuition, research and authority. This paper examines the effect of commercialization on UK higher education. It discusses some arguments regarding cost, academic research and independence of higher education in the UK. According to this research commercialization can lead to rising costs of higher education and paucity of communication in the academic community. Nevertheless, it argues that commercialization is a good system for universities in their funding and competition. Futhermore, it concludes that the UK higher education system is one of the best and other countries can learn some features from the UK.
Introduction
At the present time, UK universities have become one of the attractive educational institutions in the world. UK universities have their own history and features. Their main feature is that all of them are commercial organizations and studying in higher education in the UK is not free. The commercialization has commenced after the second war, and nowadays, the marketization becomes the main system in the UK higher education system. Many countries attempt to send their students in the UK and well known companies try to employ students who have graduated from UK universities. Moreover, in the future studying in universities and colleges in the world will not be free of charge and the education system will be capitalised, privatised and commercialised step by step [1, p.2].
However, commercialization can lead to an increase of higher education’s cost and progressively lose the value of academic research. These points are stated by the opponents of commercialization of higher education in the UK. This research will focus on the effect of commercialization on UK universities in terms of cost and research. In addition, it will explain why UK universities are very successful despite their high cost and they are also at the top in research.
The purpose of this controversial paper is to discuss, through the UK education system, why commercialization of higher education is a significant issue and it is a threat to universities or benefit to them. This paper argues that commercialization of higher education has caused some debatable arguments among the population. Despite the rising cost of higher education and the individualization of research, commercialization has positive effects on universities in the UK. This paper will take into accounts only two aspects of commercialization; they are cost of higher education in the UK and their academic achievements in the research area. Firstly, some key arguments such as why studying in the UK is not cheap and why international students should pay more expensive than local student will be discussed in this paper. Secondly, the effect of commercialization on universities’ research will be argued and evaluated. Finally, this discussion will conclude that commercialization has positive effects on UK universities.
Background and contextualisation
Higher education is one of the crucial aspects of education systems and has its own history. For example, ‘the first university was in Fez, Morocco in the ninth century AD, and the oldest university in the UK is Oxford University, whose origins can be traced back to 1167’ [2, p. 26]. Currently, all countries have their own educational systems and universities. Moreover, all universities attempt to hold rank and be among the top. Nevertheless, English dominates as an academic language in the world and UK's higher education institutes have crucial impact on it. Furthermore, the UK is proud of their history of education and Cambridge and Oxford have been established in England. Today, the UK has more than hundred universities and most of them are highly ranked.
In the last decades, the history of higher education may not be separated from the commercialization, which also influences other public sectors. For example, some public sectors such as health services and many public communications, aviation, broadcasting are commercialized and privatized [3, p.354].Then, the history of commercialization of higher education in the UK has commenced since 1970s and in this period privatization occurred due to the rise of oil price in the world. According to Foskett in the UK ‘domesticated environment’ of universities had been finished [3, p.28]. Furthermore, Williams points out that higher education in Britain changed dramatically between 1979 and 1996 [4]. At the present time, competition has become the main goal of universities, and they have to survivein the severe economic world. Marginson considers some features of economic markets such as competition, commodity, regulation and profit [3]. These concepts belong to economic area and usually they help to increase incomes of organizations. On the other hand, commercialization allows universities to be independent, not only economically but also financially. Hence UK Higher education institutions are independent from the UK government, in terms of finance. It is clear that the primary aim of Higher Education is to teach knowledge and to do research. Nonetheless, this requires money, and students have to pay for their education. Additionally, universities can establish their own tuition system for students. People believe UK universities’ costs are more expensive than those of other countries such as the US, but they could offer the best quality of knowledge in the world, so commercialization of education system has become a controversial issue. Another disagreement has emerged from commercialization is an academic exchange due to independence of universities. It could not allow good academic relationships among universities, because every university wants to be the best in an academic area and usually they do not want to share their own achievements with other institutions. For that reason, commercialization of higher education in the UK has own advantages and disadvantages.
Discussion
This section will discuss the cost of higher education. Fees of higher education are one of the most debated issues. Commercialization requires market system and UK universities are mainly dependent on students’ tuitions as commercialized organizations. However, the UK government uses cost-sharing funding system and UK universities also receive money from the government. In spite of a cost-sharing system, UK higher education cost is expensive and it causes some disagreements among the population. I will investigate the main source of funding of UK higher education and will attempt to analyze it. This part of the paper will debate why commercialization causes the rise of education cost in the UK.
The UK is one of the first countries which commercialize their own higher education system and it has become a developed education system in the world. UK higher education has a long history. Namely, Cambridge and Oxford universities are the ones of the oldest and most popular educational organizations. Moreover, other UK universities are highly ranked organizations. Since 1970s the number of students has grown slightly. In contrast, the price of oil increased and it had a crucial impact on the UK economy. Hence the government of the UK had begun privatization of public sectors such as health, transport and education.
Nowadays, all UK universities are not free, so students have to pay for higher education. Universities require money to support themselves and they use the market system which helps them to be competitive. They depend on students’ tuition, which is taken from UK students, which use cost-sharing system, and international students.
Students of UK universities have become the main consumers of higher education. Some researchers have described higher education as a market phenomenon. For example, in his article, Foskett considers marketization of UK higher education very comprehensive and gives a brief background of higher education’s history and its current direction [2]. According to Foskett marketization is one way that solves satisfaction of the population’s demand and it helps universities to survive in ‘wild environment’ [2, p.30]. Moreover, this article explains the way of funding UK universities. The author demonstrates that there existed three sources of funding. First, the government supports the Higher Education Funding, second, universities receive money from the course fee which is paid by students and finally, they obtain money from services that universities offer for students such as accommodation. Furthermore, Foskett points out some details of these funding sources [2]. The author also reveals other aspects of higher education marketization such as the demand satisfaction, the role of international market and the rise of competition. All these aspects are considered as the main areas of higher education system.
Foskett’s article highlights several interesting points in terms of marketization of higher education, such as demand, choice and competition [2]. All of them are primary features of market. The author gives interesting supports for his idea, for example, universities’ accommodations are one of the funding sources of higher education; however, students have choices [2, p.32]. For that reason, students can live everywhere. In addition, the author argues that the competition of universities could help identify the strongest among them and they can establish their own fee policy for students. Nevertheless, there is a lack of discussion regarding the consequences of marketization. Without a doubt, the market rule is competition, but it could cause the rise of fees. It could cause that poor family cannot afford higher education. Currently, some UK university tuitions such as Cambridge and Oxford are high and not everybody can access them. Another concern is perhaps the effect of international students who are paying more than local students. While international students are paying higher tuition, universities might think about their fees for UK students.
Additionally, Foskett outlines about funding provided by the UK government, namely the Educational Funding Council, which pays only half of UK students’ tuitions [2]. Nonetheless, there is less information in terms of cost-sharing which is very popular in the UK and it causes some debates among the population. For instance, in 2010 and 2011 British students protested for trebling the cost of tuition. These events were the consequences of high fees, and the growth of tuition could cause inequality in the population. Overall, Foskett’s article mainly describes the marketization of higher education in the UK [2]. The author provides enough information regarding the history and the commercialization of UK higher education and also provides valuable examples. However, this study cannot show the importance of cost-sharing and the negative consequences of marketization such as inequality.
UK universities as commercialization organizations are dependent on income. Their main source of funds is students’ tuition. The cost of higher education is not cheap and many people cannot afford it. For that reason, the government of UK pays part of tuition for UK citizens and it is called ‘cost sharing’. Cost-sharing is related to payment of higher education and he divides it into four sections: first is the government, second is parents of students, third is students, last is sponsored organizations. One of the main important points is that students of UK and EU are required to pay in advance for their courses, for these students the government pays their tuition and students can return government’s money when they have graduated and earn more than 21,000 pounds annually [5]. It seems if after graduating, students cannot earn enough money, they may not return money to the government.
However, some people do not want their tax to be spent for others’ education. For instance, Professor Noam Chomsky claims that why people should pay taxes for public education, if they do not have children [6]. It could be a convincing argument, but unequal taxes may cause social imbalance among the population. Additionally, many poor people cannot afford higher education with high tuition. For that reason, the UK government supports students some money which help to solve financial problems such as food, materials for their courses and accommodation [5].
Another important financial source of UK universities is tuition of overseas students. The UK and its universities have significant income from other countries’ citizens who study in this country [5]. For instance, the data of the HESA Student Record show that 425,265 foreign students studied in the UK in 2012-2013 [7]. These overseas students have to pay fees for their studies, so they bring the amount of money for UK universities. Nevertheless, the cost of UK universities is considerably expensive and some foreign students complain about it. For example, studying for MPA in University of Nottingham costs UK students 6,830 pounds, but international students must pay 17,500 pounds per year [5]. As taxpayers, UK citizens use the cost-sharing system and they loan money from the government. Meanwhile, overseas students must pay the whole of tuition. UK universities can ask the current worth of their service from students as a commercialized organization.
To sum up, UK universities are dependent on students’ tuitions. Students are considered as costumers of higher education. They have to pay for their knowledge, and studying in UK universities is more expensive than in other countries. Nevertheless, the UK government provides loan only for local students, and they can return it if they earn enough money in the future. It is a good opportunity for UK students and they can get knowledge if they want. Futhermore, international students must pay higher than home students, because they are not taxpayers, and as costumers of commercial institutions they must pay for the service of UK universities.
In recent years, the UK higher education is commercialized. Commercialization has its own law, such as market and competition. For example, Powers believes that recently, universities, as special research organizations, have become marketable institutions, and they have started to produce their research results as marketable outputs [8]. These conditions of commercialization cause some concerns among scholars, so the question ‘to what extent commercialization would affect academic research?’ has been highly discussed. After the commercialization of higher education, UK universities have become individual and independent. Then this leads to two options, whether universities should work privately with their own research or they should be open. I will explore this controversial issue in the next discussion section.
One of the main aims of higher education is doing research. When universities have started commercializing, it causes some concerns among the UK population. Nevertheless, currently UK universities are placed as the most successful universities in the world. For example, recently analysis carried out by Elsevier cited in Hall indicates that UK universities have become the top in terms of research [9]. It also announces that UK universities have been participating in the majority of research, and it consists of 90 per cent. The data show that commercialization does not affect universities negatively in conducting research. Moreover, Ambos et al conducted some surveys regarding universities’ academic research, and they consider that commercialized universities can carry out much research and achieve good results [10]. They mention that ‘Our organizational level findings show that it is possible to achieve ambidexterity at the level of the university through the combination of excellence in scientific research and the provision of a dual structure to facilitate the commercialization of academic inventions’ [10, p. 1441]. According to these resources, we could not say that commercialization is harmful for academic research, in contrast, they describe that this system helps to develop doing research. In addition, UK universities lead in terms of research areas, and UK Higher educational commercialization may support to reach it.
On the other hand, some scholars believe that commercialization can cause the retention of academic research. It is undeniable that the primary goal of commercialization is earning money, and it considers how to increase the profit of organizations. Interest only in money could lead to negative effects on academic research. Commercialization of universities is dangerous to the higher education system and he believes it can cause the individualization of universities. It may be reasonable, because it is undeniable that market law requires to work independently and privately. Additionally, commercialization is focused on competition. For instance, educational organizations have been competitive for earlier years and they always criticize others’ academic achievements. Academic community members must be close to each other, so this shows that commercialization can be a barrier of communication among scholars. However, position about individualization of universities and restriction of academic community might be slightly unreliable, because UK universities’ scholars’ articles have been published broadly [9]. In addition, Thomas analyzes many data which show the results of UK research and he declares that in the last two decades the quality and quantity of research conducted in the UK have grown significantly[12]. For that reason, UK academic community is not under threat. Being mindful of the competition of university commercialization could help educational organizations to be on the top. UK universities adjust to commercialization system. For instance, Cohen et al.
point out that education institutions have improved in terms of research, and the numbers of publications also have increased significantly [13]. These arguments are real evidence that commercialization cannot cause negative effect on higher education, in contrast, UK universities have increased particularly in academic fields.
In spite of some doubts, the effect of commercialization of higher education in the academic area is positive. Recent data collected by Hall show that the UK academic area has one of the most powerful achievements in the world [9]. This is real evidence for the positive effect of commercialization on research. Of course, commercialization and market could lead to individualization of universities, but it cannot be the barrier for the development of research.
Conclusion
UK universities are commercial organizations, so they must financially support themselves. However, commercialization of higher education has caused some arguments among the population. This paper has attempted to examine two main concerns; they are the cost of higher education and academic research. With regard to the cost of UK universities, it is clear that studying in the UK is considerably expensive. UK higher education organizations are dependent on tuition of students and commercialization causes a rise of fees. Despite the high cost of study, UK universities are the most attractive universities in the world. Plenty students, particularly international students have a big desire to study in the UK, because they believe UK universities can offer them a high quality of education. As commercial organizations, UK universities and colleges can estimate their own fees for students, and they are considered as costumers. Local and overseas students have choices in terms of cost and quality of higher education institutions. Hence commercialization gives more positive affects than if they remain public institutions. Without doubt, studying in the UK is not cheap. Nevertheless, for local students the government offers cost-sharing system which helps them to pay cheaper than the real cost of universities. Moreover, the high number of foreign students shows that the cost of UK higher education may not affect them. It seems that international students are interested more in the quality of education than the cost of it.
In this paper, academic research was considered as another main aspect of commercialization of higher education in the UK. It is clear that the primary goal of universities is to do research, but commercialization’s aim is to earn money. For that reason, commercialization and research are different, so the market law is very strict and universities might change their academic research direction. Additionally, as business, education institutes work individually regarding academic research and this individualism can cause a decline of research results. However, currently, the UK has become one of the top countries which conduct numbers of research and publish a lot of academic articles. It is good evidence that commer-cialization cannot be a barrier to conducting research in universities. In contrast, it may lead to competition among education institutions and helps them be more attractive to students, even from other countries.
In conclusion, commercialization for higher education might be helpful. Without doubt UK universities are more attractive and successful than other countries’ education institutes. Their main key of success could be commercialization, so universities of other countries should learn from it.
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