The Effort to Create a National System of Higher Education in Great Britain, 1850-2010 : The Conflict of State Regulation and Academic Autonomy

This study is unique in its examination of the development of state regulation of higher education in the United Kingdom during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with reference to the interplay of policy-strands and government initiatives involving the use of public funding to 'drive change', and the struggle to protect university autonomy and academic freedom.

It analyzes the progress of the struggle between state control and academic institutional autonomy with its concomitant traditions of academic freedom.

A great deal has changed in British higher education in recent years.

There has been huge expansion and a blurring of the traditional boundaries between 'further' and 'higher' and between the worlds of academe and business.

The result is a challenging account of current policy-trends and the dangers posed by their intended and unintended consequences.

Not everyone will agree with its conclusions but it is designed to provoke the debate about basics which is urgently needed. There is a readership for a comprehensive study of the century's changes in higher education, with particular reference to the most recent developments - among policy-makers and higher education managements, students of economics, business studies, sociology and intellectual history.