The theory of academic capitalism is used to explore US and EU marketization trajectories. Comparisons are made along the following dimensions: creation and expansion of intermediating organizations external to universities that promote closer relations between universities and markets; interstitial organizations that emerge from within universities that intersect various market oriented projects; narratives, discourses and social technologies that promote marketization and competition; expanded managerial capacity; new funding streams for research and programs close to the market; and new circuits of knowledge that move away from peer review and professional judgment as arbiters of excellence. We also consider the status of fields not closely integrated with external markets, and see fragmentation of the humanities, fine arts and (some) social sciences to be a sign of research universities marketization. We conclude that the US and EU are following very different paths to bring higher education closer to the market. The US move to the market was incremental and frequently led by a wide variety of non-governmental organizations, often with strong ties to the for-profit sector and participation by segments of universities prior to federal legislation or mandates. The European Commission is reverse engineering Anglo-American higher education models to reconstruct technologies of governance in uniquely European contexts that embed competition in nation-state initiatives. Although the discourse surrounding university marketization promises growth of high paying jobs prosperity, evidence to date suggests very uneven results for both the US and EU.

In this article, Brendan Cantwell and Jenny J. Lee examine the experiences of international postdocs and their varying career paths in the current political economy of academic capitalism through the lens of neoracism. Using in-depth interviews with science and engineering faculty and international postdocs in the United States and the United Kingdom, the authors identify differing faculty expectations and treatment of international postdocs. They further reveal culturally specific stereotypes that negatively affected postdocs' work opportunities as they moved toward their professoriate career. The authors extend the concept of neoracism in globalized higher education by examining the larger structures of the academic job market and varying degrees of opportunity, depending on one's country of origin as reported by faculty and postdocs.

This study examined the dispositions, experiences, and expectations of international students in a developing country to understand the increasing phenomenon of reverse student flows and the role of the political economy in international student mobility. Students' dispositions, experiences and expectations-referred here collectively as ''orientations''-served as the guiding framework for this study. Data were drawn from survey responses from 279 international students at universities throughout Mexico and analyzed to explore the orientations among students from Europe, Latin America and North America. Findings showed significant differences among international students' dispositions, experiences, and expectations by these geographical regions of origin. In a broader context, this research addressed the important role of developing countries as not only senders but also receivers of international students. This research also demonstrated the ways that the political economy shape the orientations of students studying abroad.

No abstract

There has been growing interest in the business of international education. It is often assumed that universities seek international students as a means of generating revenue. The broad purpose of this study was to understand the effects of increased international student enrollment on net tuition revenue. Informed by resource dependency and academic capitalism theory, this study used panel regression techniques to estimate the effect of enrolling an international undergraduate student on tuition revenue among public colleges and universities in the United States Findings show some but not all institutions are able to generate additional income by enrolling additional international students.