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The emergence of internet-based business models has given rise to online higher education institutions (OHEIs) that offer their undergraduate and graduate degree programs exclusively online with minimal physical presence. Research on OHEIs discusses the need for external legitimacy and resource acquisition, often ignoring the role of quality among these institutions. Hence, this study aims to investigate the role of digital quality of education on OHEIs’ survival.

Guided by four different inter-disciplinary theories, a conceptual framework is offered based on a comprehensive literature review.

The role of digital quality of education in improving the survival and strategic competitiveness of institutions in the US online higher education industry is highlighted.

This conceptual paper highlights how the digital quality of education becomes increasingly important over the life cycle of OHEIs.

The proposed framework suggests that despite the competition provided by traditional and well-entrenched players, OHEIs can improve their survival and competitiveness if they invest strategically in the digital quality of education.

This study offers an overarching conceptual framework developed through an integration of multiple theoretical perspectives and grounded in the US online higher education industry.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a feminist perspective to the crisis in prison higher education in the US by exploring whether gender shapes access to on‐site, non‐occupational college programs in state prisons differently for women than for men.

The paper utilized a content analysis of official US state departments of correction websites and an email survey of state directors of education.

Findings show that while both women and men had little access to on‐site, non‐occupational college programming in the 2005‐2006 academic year, women in state prison had slightly greater access than men.

Theoretical implications of the findings include the importance of focusing a gender lens on correctional education programming, as well as the importance of extending analysis beyond gender alone towards an analysis of the intersections of gender, race, and class inequalities on access to prison higher education.

Practical implications include the identification of an emergent educational justice movement in the USA, and the presentation of exploratory data on the current college‐in‐prison programs useful for progressive activists, policymakers, correctional education administrators, equity scholars, and others interested in organizing around democratic access to postsecondary correctional education.

As there is little current research on college‐in‐prison programs in the US, and less on the gendered dimensions of program access, the paper makes an original valuable contribution to several literatures.

This account aims to introduce contrasting perspectives on teaching and learning methods, and to detail the growth of new forms and vocabularies of access to learning. As we move towards the new millennium, the development of national, yet diversified, credit frameworks and systems will provide an essential underpinning for the organisational culture that will be needed to sustain the wellbeing and growth of the educational system. These new systems are already being incorporated into the practice of ‘virtual’ education. Lifelong learning has widespread support across the social and political spectrum and its importance can hardly be over‐stated as we seek to maintain competitiveness in a changing world. Increasing knowledge and understanding to serve both the needs of the economy and of individuals to play a major role in democratic life has become an agenda of necessity as well as desire. An open society requires open systems of knowledge. A prognosis for the future is submitted where the significance of part‐time modular and open flexible learning is evaluated in terms of a curriculum rooted in useful knowledge and competences, acquired at different sites of learning, including the workplace. It is argued that modular structures, using the potential offered by credit accumulation and transfer to different institutions with different missions, can transcend and transform the learning opportunities for students in a mass system of higher education which is rapidly becoming part of a global market economy and society. Continuous lifelong learning involving its key features of open access, recognition of learning wherever it takes place and the growth of new learning networks and partnerships, is at the conceptual heart of the development of the virtual university.

This paper seeks to analyze the internationalization of quality practices in higher education. In light of insufficient theorization about quality in the global dimension, the paper presents a model for value construction in higher education.

The authors reviewed different models for quality in higher education vis-à-vis emerging international quality practices in higher education.

After reviewing quality models and international quality practices, the authors argue that, in order to evaluate and improve quality in higher education, a model of value in higher education that connects quality with relevance, access, and investment is necessary.

Thus far, quality in higher education has been explored in isolation from access, relevance, and investment. The integrative approach suggested here may prove generative for researchers and help address complex educational interrogations.

Higher education leaders are faced with decisions about quality; these leaders may benefit from connecting quality decisions with the demands on relevance, access, and investment that their local settings dictate.

The concept of value is largely absent from conceptual discussions about quality in higher education; additionally, many discussions about quality in higher education seem to be isolated from their context. This paper addresses both these issues.

This paper seeks to conduct an in‐depth study of international trends in private higher education and focus on the Indian scenario

The methodology adopted is conceptual, analytical and comparative.

Though there has been better acceptability of private higher education institutions in India today than the “trepidation” felt at their emergence three decades ago, certain basic questions have been raised: Is the presence of private sector in higher education inevitable? Is it desirable too? Why is the Supreme Court of India intervening in matters pertaining to private higher education so frequently? What are the issues at stake?

An attempt is made to highlight the political‐economic, socio‐cultural, national‐international, ethical‐philosophical and legal‐practical aspects of this outreaching theme, in general, and focus on the driving forces, causes, and consequences of the emergence of the private higher education during the last three decades, in particular.

Some might think that there was a dichotomy between the two halves of the title of this article. They might wish to argue that it is possible to consider how resources in higher education might be used more effectively, without going into any detail in the consideration of the aims of higher education. Put in simple terms, it is exceedingly tempting to regard the throughput of students for a given expenditure as the criterion of effectiveness in higher education. Even then however we should have a concealed aim: namely, to maximise the number of students participating in higher education for a given cost. Unfortunately, such an aim is deficient in two respects. In the first place, it takes no account of standards — whether of teaching, of learning, of attainment, or of the general development of the student. Secondly, the maximisation of throughput is essentially a secondary objective, which can have no meaning without reference to a primary objective. Otherwise we beg the question of why we bother to provide higher education at all.

Service firms constantly look for ways to differentiate their offering. Recently, personal values have emerged as a way to understand how customers fulfill deeper needs when consuming a service. This paper aims to examine how personal values operate in the evaluation of higher education services. Like other services, marketing has become essential to higher education as universities compete aggressively for students and differentiate their service offerings. Although attribute‐based measures such as SERVQUAL provide useful information to service providers, personal values may offer a deeper understanding of how customers judge the quality and desirability of an educational institution's services. This study seeks to determine whether personal values in higher education affect perceptions of overall value, satisfaction, and behavioral outcomes including loyalty and intention to recommend.

A survey measured student personal values, service quality, satisfaction, and behavioral outcomes in the USA – the largest exporter of higher educational service, and India – the largest net importer. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and t‐tests.

The results describe the impact of personal values on satisfaction and behavioral outcomes, while showing differences between India and the USA.

The paper provides implications for applying the personal values concept to the marketing of a university. It also serves as a basis for future research on the impact of personal values in other service sectors.

The study fills an important gap in the literature by showing that personal values are an important dimension in services. Service firms need to move beyond attributes and measure personal values, as these values do impact customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine The Chronicle of Higher Education, a leading site for higher education news and politics, and its representation of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Frames are strong discursive tools that can help social actors achieve the following: define and solve problems, shape public opinion, increase the productivity of interpersonal negotiations and “serve as a foundation of public discourse, such as negotiation, on a mass-communication level”. As such, this research is guided by both higher education literature of HBCUs and media framing theories and methods in an attempt to identify potential problems and opportunities for improvement of the presentation of HBCUs nationally in the USA.

This study reveals that when the frames are viewed in concert-funding challenges at HBCUs, status differential between predominantly white institutions vs HBCUs, questionable leadership practices at HBCUs and achievement success, what one sees is an unflattering picture depicted in the Chronicle of Higher Education of HBCUs, as second-hand universities that are poorly managed, outdated and are a drain on the economy. Any one of these themes, alone, is not problematic, but when taken as a whole, their entirety represents a troubling picture – one that is inaccurate because HBCUs have and continue to serve an important role in society: educating African Americans.

This paper concludes with pragmatic implications of the negative findings about HBCUs as well as discusses tactics proponents HBCUs should use to combat the negative depictions.

There are a few things in the world, I am convinced, that you cannot put a dollars‐and‐cents value on. Among such things is the value of higher education. We can determine how much higher education may cost us. We can also determine the approximate payback for higher education. But we will be hard pressed to put a monetary value on higher education. And here is the fallacy for those who argue that higher education has become too expensive and it is not worth it. In this paper, I will discuss the cost of higher education (to the student and to the nation or the state), the value of higher education, and the approximate payback of higher education for the individual and the state.