The Political Economy of Education

Chapter 25 describes the expansion and transformation of higher education internationally after World War II and particularly in the developing countries after 1995. The chapter delves into the many theories that attempt to explain this “massification” of access to colleges and universities, from a supply/demand explanation that focuses on the role of globalization and technological change (increasing rates of return to higher education) to ideological/State legitimation analyses. Analyzing such a large change is important, because first, there are competing theoretical explanations of these changes, and second, each explanation makes quite different assumptions about political power and how it is reflected in State action. The final part of the chapter focuses on a key concept that emerges from the discussion of the various theories of expansion and lays the groundwork for studying higher education financing; namely, higher education as a private and public good. It is the highly political nature of this concept, and how it varies across different societies, that infuses our discussion of higher education finance in the chapters that follow.