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China has witnessed the emergence and rapid development of private higher education in the past three decades. As private higher education gradually takes on a more significant role in the Chinese educational system, due to the inability of the government to accommodate the growing demand for higher education, educational reform, influenced by the success of private higher education, will inevitably affect the quality and quantity of education overall.

This chapter focuses on several aspects of this development: the growth of private higher education in China, issues of finance and access, its relationship to the national system and to government policy, issues of ownership and the autonomy of private higher education, as well as the advantages and challenges of Chinese private higher education and the larger significance of its emergence in China. This study concludes that with proper management private colleges and universities will benefit from and contribute to Chinese society through multiple roles and responsibilities at their mature stage.

This chapter draws on findings from a comparative, qualitative research project investigating the decision-making of different groups of English higher education students in central England as they graduated from a Russell group university (46 interviewees) and a Post-92 university (28 interviewees). Half of the students graduated in 2014 (lower tuition fees regime) and the other half graduated in 2015 (higher tuition fees regime). The students interviewed were sampled by socio-economic background, gender, degree subject/discipline and secondary school type. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore students’ future plans and perceptions of their future job prospects. Despite higher debt levels, the 2015 sample of Russell Group graduates from lower socio-economic backgrounds had a positive view of their labour market prospects and a high proportion had achieved either a graduate job or a place on a postgraduate course prior to graduation. This group had saved money whilst studying. The 2015 sample of Post-1992 University graduates (from both lower and average socio-economic backgrounds) were worried about their level of debt, future finances and labour market prospects. This chapter raises questions about whether a fairer university finance system, involving lower levels of debt for graduates from less advantaged backgrounds, might avoid some graduates’ transitions to adulthood being so strongly influenced by financial anxieties.

This chapter considers how far political devolution has enabled the government in Wales to develop a distinctive approach to student funding. It examines in particular claims that policy choices in Wales on student funding reflect a commitment to ‘progressive universalism’, a term sometimes used by policy-makers in Wales and elsewhere to describe combining means-tested and non-means-tested benefits. The chapter also explores the growing use of income-contingent loans, arguing that such loans complicate debates about targeting and universalism.

Higher education researchers are often challenged by the difficulty of empirically validating causal links posited by theories or inferred from correlational observations. The instrumental variable (IV) estimation strategy is one approach that researchers can use to estimate the causal impact of various higher education–related interventions. In this chapter, we discuss how the body of quantitative research specifically devoted to higher education has made use of the IV estimation strategy: we describe how this estimation strategy was used to address causality concerns and provide examples of the types of IVs that were used in various subfields of higher education research. Our discussion is based on a systematic review of a corpus of econometric studies on higher education–related issues that spans the last 30 years. The chapter concludes with a critical discussion of the use of IVs in quantitative higher education research and a discussion of good practices when using an IV estimation strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine: how financial practices are diffused across countries and who are the carriers of diffusion; and to determine why the nature of adoption varies across countries and specific institutional fields and why certain practices are adopted in some settings but not in others.

In the macro portion of the study the authors document how World Bank loans in Latin America have encouraged the adoption of particular configurations of accounting and accountability practices. In the micro portion of the study, they analyze the cases of Guatemala and Mexico as a way of illustrating the ways in which the configuration of institutional players, capitals and habitus within these two sites have influenced the adoption of Bank recommended financial practices.

First, the analyses illustrate that the World Bank functions as an agent of diffusion via direct contact and through indirect modelling activities. Second, the analyses show that diffusion is not an automatic process – rather the predisposition of national governments, the embodied history of higher education and the distribution of capitals within the field influences whether financial reforms will be attempted. Third the analyses illustrate that, even when the introduction of new accounting and accountability mechanisms are attempted, other important field participants such as students can partially block the introduction of financial reforms.

The current study illustrates that international organizations such as the World Bank facilitate the diffusion of accounting and accountability practices but that local actors influence if, when and how accounting will be introduced and implemented.

Due to scarcity of research in governance and accountability in private higher education in developing countries, the purpose of this paper is to explore the tensions surrounding good governance in legitimizing accountability in private universities in developing countries with reference to Bangladesh.

Mixed methods are employed: a quantitative survey of 1,576 students from all 79 private universities; qualitative interviews with 23 stakeholders; and policy documents including the Private University Acts, the World Bank Report and newspapers (1992-2015) were evaluated. The objectives of these mixed methods in this study are juxtaposed and generate complementary insights that together create a bigger picture surrounding governance and accountability issues.

Using Clark's (1983) triangle model (i.e. state control, academic oligarchy, and market forces together with the external influence of donors and boards of trustees as internal governance) and new institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), the major contributions of this study are explaining the root causes of the poor governance of private universities through three related factors: the substantial political power and autonomy held by boards of trustees; a lack of enforcement of Private University Act; and a lack of coordination among stakeholders. The coercive power of the state becomes powerless since the board of trustees ultimately enjoys political power and “does whatever it can.” The lack of coordination of the academic oligarchy (e.g. professors and academics) and market forces (represented by students) by the board of trustees creates a paradox of governance and hence a decoupling of formal policies and actual practice.

The findings have major policy implications for local and international policymakers for improving good governance in private universities in developing countries.

The novelty of the study's findings represents an initial effort to understand the complex and persistent phenomenon of prolonged poor governance of private universities in developing countries, which is largely neglected in the literature. This will undoubtedly contribute to literature and policy implications.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the academic understanding of the perception of brand dimensions in the Islamic Higher Education Institutions (IHEIs) and explore the implications for managerial practice. The main objective of this research is to identify the branding aspects that apply to higher education branding in general and Islamic higher education in particular. The empirical setting is the Middle East, which has a mixture of public and private Islamic institutions working on spreading the moderate Islamic thoughts internationally.

The methodology used to guide the research is based on exploratory qualitative research approach composed of 45 in‐depth interviews with academicians and executives from five Gulf countries. The adopted qualitative approach is based on inductive logic to help reveal the main criteria influencing the perception of IHEIs' brands.

The results provide partial support for the proposed conceptual framework of the dimension of branding in the Islamic higher education market, with the functional dimension being far more significant than the social, mental and spiritual dimensions. Findings indicate that internationalisation will be the key element that influences the perception of the brand in the new competitive environment. The research also reveals the respondents' ideal definition of a good brand, the perception of brand's determinants and the general characteristics of the ideal higher education institution.

Recommendations are provided to decision makers in IHEIs, in order to develop their educational services and enhance their institutions' brand image.

This research helps in structuring what defines a good IHEI brand, from the perspective of academicians and experts in the labour market.

Focuses on Moldavia, and its task of nation building – a task that depends, in part, on the effectiveness of the nation's educational system– following the demise of the Soviet Union. Provides a brief discussion of the growing importance of higher education, examines the evolution of higher education and management responses to the changing environment, and identifies current management practices in higher education. Concludes with a set of universal principles or characteristics of effective higher education and with an injunction to countries in transition and developing countries to reorient their educational policies in light of these principles.

This chapter analyses the degree to which the UK Higher Education (UKHE) Sector can offer spaces for students to critically reflect on topics relevant to activist criminology such as zemiology or abolitionism as opposed to constructing the criminal justice system (CJS) as a natural solution for crimes and social harms. This chapter argues for the importance of this topic due to deepening institutional links between universities and criminal justice agencies in the name of professionalisation for the latter (Hallenberg & Cockroft, 2017). This chapter proposes that to avoid criminology curricula merely reproducing the priorities and solutions of the CJS, it should turn to the liberatory pedagogy of Paolo Freire (1996). This includes teaching practices to encourage recognition of social movements and resistance against harms of states, corporations, or the CJS as legitimate foci in the criminology curriculum.

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents as “stakeholders” in higher education in England and how they perceive teaching excellence.

The study adopted a qualitative research design using an interpretative approach through which the authors aimed to develop understandings of parents’ perspectives as higher education “stakeholders”. The empirical data were gathered via focus group interviews and an online survey with 24 participants in the UK.

This study found that the majority of parents wished to be treated as an important stakeholder group in higher education. Parent participants perceived that teaching excellence could be evidenced through indicators and measures, for example, the design and delivery of the courses, progress measures, contact hours, speed of return of marked work, graduate employability and so on. They also saw value and significance in the students’ exposure to ideas and perspectives not previously experienced, in zeal and passion in the teaching, and in an academically nurturing, understanding and supportive pedagogical relationship between academic and student.

This study uncovered some apparent tensions, contradictions and challenges for parents as stakeholders in higher education, for example, in reconciling the co-existence of their desire to be involved and engaged with scope for students to be formed as independent young adults. Parents’ desire to measure teaching excellence is also compounded by their concern that excellent teaching is thereby reduced to a box-ticking exercise. This study has implications for higher education institutions wishing to engage parents as a stakeholder group in a meaningful way.