This book explores the way in which the pressures of globalisation are shaping higher education funding and access across the world. Higher education is seen as a way of developing human capital and building knowledge economies, but major debates continue about who should attend university; how the costs of higher education should be distributed between the individual student and the state; how students from non-traditional backgrounds can be helped to succeed in higher education; and the intended and unintended consequences of widening access initiatives. 
Globalisation is not a uni-directional force, but is accompanied by movements to reinforce the local and the regional, often driven by fears of loss of identity. Universities across the world have become more powerful and autonomous from the state, but at the same time students as consumers of education have an increasingly powerful voice. They frequently find themselves in opposition to the business model which infuses higher education systems and student protests have had a strong influence on policy development. This book explores the way in which the twin pressures of globalisation and localisation play out in higher education across the developed world, often reflected in more specific debates on fees regimes, access and culture.

Scholars of education place British debates about tuition fees and access to higher education into an international context of varied policies and varied outcomes. Their topics include whether student support in Wales is a case of progressive universalism, whether the techniques of new public management can be used to promote wider access to higher education, widening participation in higher education: policies and outcomes in Germany, the price of university: economic capital and the experience of under-represented students in an elite US university, and higher education in the developed world: common challenges and local solutions. -- Annotation ©2018 * (protoview.com) *

Sheila Riddell is Director of the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK. Sarah Minty is an ESRC-funded doctoral student in the Centre for Research in Education, Inclusion & Diversity at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK.  Elisabet Wheedon is Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK.   Susan Whittaker is a member of the Strategy and Planning Unit at Glasgow Caledonian University. She is a former Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity at the Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK.