Mission Driven or Customer Driven? The Plight of Modern Higher Education Institutions

By Shaun Curran. The concept of higher education institutions becoming business enterprises is not new. This idea has prevailed for years at for-profit institutions with mixed results. There are those who argue — correctly — that without the existence of capitalism, or some form of business model, higher education institutions as they stand today would not be possible; the downside of these business practices is that they have the potential to turn legitimate higher education institutions into degree mills — and change education itself into a commodity. More...