An empirical profile of for-profit higher education worldwide

• In Event: Reforms, sustainable development, and social change in higher education (I)

Proposal

Despised by some and embraced by others, the private for-profit higher education (FPHE) sector rarely goes unnoticed. For-profits have consolidated as a third sector in providing higher education worldwide, alongside –and even sometimes numerically surpassing– the private nonprofit and public sectors. FPHE tends to be overlooked and understudied, although they are present in every continent, often in more than one country (Kinser & Levy, 2006; Kinser & Salto, 2017). One would expect that market-driven higher education systems such as the “US model” (Clark, 1983) would accommodate these business-like organizations in education. Strikingly so, even countries with historically strong state ruling like France or communist legacies like Vietnam, legally allow for-profits in higher education (Casta & Levy, 2016; Chau et al., 2020).

Controversies often surround for-profits in higher education because they represent the most explicit way the market enters higher education, to the point that many FPHE institutions are managed like any other private business firm. Unsurprisingly, much of what we know about FPHE is biased toward the US case, one of the largest and most prominent higher education systems worldwide. The growth and consolidation of this sector occur while public policy rejects, overlooks, or accommodates this development.

While national case studies are increasingly addressing the reality of FPHE, only a few pieces (Kinser & Levy, 2006; Kinser & Salto, 2017) have attempted to build a global sector profile. Even in these cases, research has not approached it systematically. Given the limited comparative and international studies on FPHE, this study inquires about the for-profit sector's size, role, and regulation worldwide. This paper provides the first comprehensive and systematic empirical profile of FPHE worldwide, analyzes the role of public policy in the emergence and consolidation of this sector, and highlights implications for research, policy, and practice.

To fulfill the study's primary purpose, the study involved the development of the first and most comprehensive database on FPHE worldwide to date. The database includes 1) studies on FPHE and private higher education in countries where only legally for-profit institutions exist; 2) official national databases. The national studies on FPHE contextualize national developments, retrieve data points, and trace the role of public policy. The official national databases provide data points in countries differentiating for-profit and nonprofit HE.

Preliminary findings show that at least 20 countries legally allow FPHE and eight more countries allow for-profit international corporations to own nonprofit higher education institutions. In four countries, the for-profit sector represents more than 20% of the enrolment in higher education, including two countries with an enrollment higher than 35%. Most institutions tend to be non-elite institutions offering short-cycle career training. Often, these institutions are considered low-quality, and more recent regulatory requirements have led to the closure of institutions. Public policy, thus, has moved between overseeing or even promoting the development of FPHE and regulating it afterward.

Author

• Dante J Salto, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee