Mercantilization and Oligopolization in the Private Higher Education

Abstract

The article analyses the economic changes that the private
higher education has passed in recent years and, in particular, its implications on the profile of the institutions and the quality of education. It shows how its current expansive dynamics has favored the proliferation of foreign and speculative capital in the ownership breakdown of holdings created for controlling of several higher education institutions (HEIs), the oligopolization in the sector, the incentive from state resources, and the increasing substitution of the state responsibility by the students themselves (and their families) in relation to the funding of studies in this educational level. Finally, some implications of this process on the quality of education are offered.