Before the Neoliberal Campus: University, Place and the Business of Higher Education

Abstract This article examines the relationship between the university and physical place over time, setting out the rise of the placed-based higher education institution leading to its current role as an attractant for the academy. The association between campus and community, known as the town–gown relationship, influenced the material form that the university initially took, and this relationship continues to play a prominent role today. However, a new and more globalized outset provokes growth and change in the physicality of the modern neoliberal university, where the campus responds to an increasingly larger market of potential users and investors. The article argues that the business of higher education has always existed and is amplified, rather than instigated, by the globalized knowledge-based economy. While place has become an important aspect of the higher education experience, the creation of knowledge is expressly tied to human organization and spans well beyond the tangible environment.