Conceptualising Equality, Equity and Differentiation in Marketised Higher Education: Fractures and Fault Lines in the Neoliberal Imaginary

This chapter explores the extent to which policy changes designed to stimulate the marketisation of English higher education (HE) have changed the nature of the enterprise. It identifies emerging trajectories and explores how various aspects of marketisation impact on system differentiation and the possibilities of a more equitable HE. It identifies consistencies in relation to the continuing transfer of the burden of costs from the state to the individual and in the growth of ‘academic capitalism’, first identified by Slaughter and Leslie almost 20 years ago. It also identifies contradictions at the heart of neoliberal reform of HE, which include elite conceptions of the role of HE alongside a neoliberal positioning which views the HE market as sufficient to ensure fair access.