What Should the Right to Higher Education Look Like?

This chapter addresses some key objections to the right to higher education and provides a fuller picture of what this right can look like at the level of public policy and institutional practice. First, the chapter revisits the broader rationale for the argument in order to show how a rights-based conception of can better inform public debate about the justice, fairness, and purposes of higher education. Second, it applies this account to Martin Trow’s famous conceptualization of higher education systems into “elite,” “mass,” and “universal” stages of growth and development in order to demonstrate how the right to higher education can inform higher education policy. Finally, it addresses the worry that the right to higher education overstates the importance of post-compulsory education for a liberal society. Here the chapter engages with issues about the role of higher education in the promotion of human welfare and the level of “idealization” built into the argument.