Philip Altbach Philip G. Altbach is Monan professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.
Research universities are in trouble in many countries.
Budget cutters and government planners in Washington, Sacramento, and Albany, not to mention London and Rome, seem to have forgotten that research-oriented universities have played a central role in the development of modern science and technology. It is argued that research can be conducted by private industry. In many countries, there is a surplus of doctorates in some disciplines. Budget cutting, stimulated by a movement to reduce public spending at all levels, is linked to the ideology of privatization. The forces arrayed against the universities are powerful.