Differentiation and convergence in higher education

Abstract

The changes in the institutions of higher education in the last twenty years of the 20th century led us to modify our consideration of them form a cultural project and public good production institution, conductive being to development and social mobility; to conceive them as businesses, the higher education should function like a market, where the institutions of higher education are the rivals. The speech of the university as an entity dedicated to developing got less and less frequently used by its defenders and was completely forgotten by the developers of the business institutions. The mentioned conditions brought inherently the apparition of the phenomenon of differentiation and convergence, object of reflection in this essay; to explain what it is and how the structural change in higher education institutions is expressed; how its commuting into its business form is generated, the implications the previously mentioned phenomenon brought among these institutions, on their inside and in the national systems of higher education.