Conclusion UK universities are commercial organizations, so they must financially support themselves. However,
commercialization of higher education has caused some arguments among the population. This paper has
attempted to examine two main concerns; they are the cost of higher education and academic research. With
regard to the cost of UK universities, it is clear that studying in the UK is considerably expensive. UK higher
education organizations are dependent on tuition of students and commercialization causes a rise of fees.
Despite the high cost of study, UK universities are the most attractive universities in the world. Plenty
students, particularly international students have a big desire to study in the UK, because they believe UK
universities can offer them a high quality of education. As commercial organizations, UK universities and
colleges can estimate their own fees for students, and they are considered as costumers. Local and overseas
students have choices in terms of cost and quality of higher education institutions. Hence commercialization
gives more positive affects than if they remain public institutions. Without doubt, studying in the UK is not
cheap. Nevertheless, for local students the government offers cost-sharing system which helps them to pay
cheaper than the real cost of universities. Moreover, the high number of foreign students shows that the cost
of UK higher education may not affect them. It seems that international students are interested more in the
quality of education than the cost of it.
In this paper, academic research was considered as another main aspect of commercialization of higher
education in the UK. It is clear that the primary goal of universities is to do research, but commercia-
lization’s aim is to earn money. For that reason, commercialization and research are different, so the market
law is very strict and universities might change their academic research direction. Additionally, as business,
education institutes work individually regarding academic research and this individualism can cause a
decline of research results. However, currently, the UK has become one of the top countries which conduct
numbers of research and publish a lot of academic articles. It is good evidence that commer-cialization
cannot be a barrier to conducting research in universities. In contrast, it may lead to competition among
education institutions and helps them be more attractive to students, even from other countries.
In conclusion, commercialization for higher education might be helpful. Without doubt UK universities
are more attractive and successful than other countries’ education institutes. Their main key of success could
be commercialization, so universities of other countries should learn from it.
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