The Rise of For-Profit Partnerships in Higher Education
Jeffrey Selingo
July 19, 2022
Coming out of the 2001 recession, public colleges and universities weren’t seeing the upswing in their taxpayer appropriations that they had after previous economic downturns. Tax cuts as well as new expenses, particularly health care, were eating into the public coffers.
I still recall reporting this particular piece because so many of its sources came of age during a time in higher ed when public colleges didn’t charge tuition or were close to free. These college leaders saw the move to privatization—which at the time meant starting separate private foundations to raise money or spinning off law and business schools as independent entities—as a massive shift in higher ed from a public purpose to a private good.
“University Inc.” was how one of my colleagues described the thesis of the article. Of course, what public colleges were considering then in terms of privitization now seems quaint compared to what has happened since—not only at public institutions but also private universities, too.
