Market Forces, Massification, and Neoliberalism in Higher Education

This chapter investigates how neoliberalism, massification, and marketisation have transformed private higher education institutions (PEIs) in Asia. It traces how state retreat and demand expansion created opportunities for private providers while embedding market logics of competition, efficiency, and consumerism. Drawing on regional cases, the chapter examines how tuition dependency, international rankings, franchising models, and audit cultures shape institutional behaviour and faculty labour. It critiques the tendency toward transactional education and metric-driven governance, arguing that these pressures often distort educational purpose. The chapter introduces the Compliance–Market–Legitimacy (CML) framework to support reflexive, ethical, and contextually grounded decision-making. It calls for alternative models of sustainability that balance market realities with mission, integrity, and public value.