The Commercialization of Higher Education: Causes and Implication

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The Commercialization of Higher Education: Causes and Implication
In its simplest definition, education comprises the skills, knowledge, and behaviors that are transmitted from one generation to another. At a complex level, education involves the system (such as public education), organization (school syllabus and curriculum) resources (teachers, learning material) and institutions (schools and colleges) that facilitate collective learning in society. As the most single source of legal authority for civil and social organization, governments are tasked with the responsibility of promoting education in society. As a result, governments fund education through grants for research, building schools, providing learning resources, paying teachers and making relevant policies. However, changing economic times have placed financial strains on governments, leading to inadequate and insufficient funding of public education. At the same time, advancements in information technology have diversified the means through which individuals can access information and knowledge. Thirdly, the expansion of the middle and upper class societies has created an elite group dissatisfied with the quality of education offered in the public system. These developments have opened opportunities for the establishment of private enterprises in the education system. The ultimate consequence is the commercialization of education; putting education in the market place. It involves transforming education into a business enterprise whereby private investors provide education to tuition-paying students. This essay discusses the commercialization of education and its implications in the education sector.
The commercialization of education is probably a consequence of two developments in human history; technology and a rising middle-class population. While the former offers a convenient and effective means through which educational services are marketed and sold to consumers around the world, the latter provides a sizable consumer base with the necessary purchasing power to afford higher education in foreign institutions (John 591). It is not surprising, therefore, that most of the consumers of commercialized education are foreign students, such those who come to the U.S. or the UK for post-secondary education. Having finished primary and secondary schooling in their home countries, their parents send them abroad to earn foreign degrees, which are highly regarded on account of the advanced education system in Western countries.
Nevertheless, the commercialization of education in a global system presents many challenges to the education system and society in general. This is because the modern society, whose technological-orientation has facilitated the commercialization of education, requires individuals who understand other cultures to enable them function effectively in a globalized educational, social, and economic environment. One way of overcoming the challenges of globalization is developing an education system that produces globally conscious individuals. Towards this end, it has become necessary to adopt a universal language to allow effective cross-cultural interaction and communication. Consequently, English has become the major language through which all commercialized education in the world is offered. Effective cross-cultural communication is particularly necessary to promote intercultural understanding as a means of facilitating coexistence, tolerance, and international cooperation. As such, commercial education embraces diversity by using a language that enables learners to accommodate different cultural views, beliefs, values, and attitudes. Failure to acquire and promote a common language will lead to alienation from other societies, and consequently, deny the isolated society the opportunity to exploit the benefits of globalization and technological advancements. In this light, the commercialization of education is impacting society in more ways than the mere transmission of knowledge; in addition, it has led to the marriage of different cultures in education.
In this regard, one of the most visible impacts of the commercialization of education in the face of globalization is the breaking down of the socio-economic and cultural barriers that hindered interaction among different cultures, by way of bringing together learners from different social and cultural backgrounds, and promoting a universal language of communication. Language is one of the key drivers of this process because it bridges the linguistic gap between people from different racial and cultural backgrounds. A universal language not only offers a medium for cross-cultural communication, but also provides a platform for the exchange of ideas, technologies, and cultural transformation as well as for facilitating service-exchange across international boundaries. Consequently, the commercialization of education means that any society that fails to learn universally recognized language risks isolation from the rest of the world. This is because the commercialization is geared towards the creation of a pluralistic society, whereby individuals learn and work in similar environments.
The emergency of private enterprise in education is another consequence of the commercialization of education. The education sector has developed into a market place where skills and knowledge are hawked to those who can afford it. This in part may be due to economic factors that make governments incapable of providing the kind of quality of education sought by the elite class in the public school system (Clay, 2008). Private investors have stepped in to fill this gap by providing custom and tailor-made education that not only measures up to the tastes of the elite, but also meet the skill requirements of the job market. It is understandable, therefore, that some of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world are private enterprise, and it is where the world’s richest children go to.
Finally, the commercialization of education has led to discourses on the way forward in the edu...