In 2012 Australian universities will be undergoing the most radical shift in government policy since the Dawkins reforms of the 1980s created the 'unified' system.
Under those reforms 'Colleges of Advanced Education' were rebadged as universities with the expectation that over time they would become major tertiary educators along the lines of then existing universities. Some have succeeded, while others have struggled.
A major benchmark for government in this regard is 'research outputs', the ability of universities to produce quality research of international standard. Hence the 'Excellence in Research Australia' (ERA) exercise which has recently convulsed our tertiary institutions.
The new reform, recommended by the Bradley Review, is that rather than funding being allocated to institutions which must then admit students according to a quota determined by the government, the funding will instead follow the students. So universities must compete for students.
The student is now the sovereign consumer of an 'education product'. A marketplace of universities and other tertiary colleges will hawk their wares in a bid to attract the best and brightest. Whether all the present universities will survive in this competitive marketplace is an open question. I'm sure a number of vice-chancellors are having sleepless nights pondering their decreasing enrolment figures.
One consequence of this change is that the distinction between public and private tertiary institutions will become largely irrelevant. Private universities such as Notre Dame Australia and Bond University will be able to compete for students on the same basis as any other university. So will other specialist private providers with government recognition, such as private theological colleges and small liberal arts type colleges.
Of course all this is a long way from a conception of a university as a place of 'learning for learning's sake'. Universities are no longer places where students have time and space to grapple with the hard questions of life. Rather it is a place where they juggle study with part-time work commitments (on average over 20 hours per week), aiming to move into one of the various professions open to graduates of professional degrees.
The clear goal is not learning, but employment — teaching, nursing, accountancy, medicine, law, engineering, media and so on.
All this begs the question of what we mean by a 'university'. Although I am not personally a great fan of etymologies as a basis for answering such a question, in this case