Baroness Alison Wolf, professor of public sector management at King’s College London, has warned against new legislation that would make it easier to establish private universities.
Sweeping general legislation might make it easier to set up a really small, innovative, educationally wonderful institution, but it’s much more likely to mean we end up with the American-style catastrophe.
There are all kinds of catastrophes in America, many of them due to inadequate public oversight over the private sector. I’d be on her side if she were using the US as a bogeyman to warn us against conservative tendencies in healthcare, policing, schooling… pretty much anything. Not universities, or, at least, not in such a blanket fashion. It’s not clear, either, whether she is concerned primarily with improving educational opportunities or with national brand management, with a broad array of institutions “damaging the UK’s reputation for higher education”.
I think you would be hard pressed to convince anyone that private universities overall have damaged the US reputation in higher education.
Common Infirmities 