Director: Daniel C. Levy

Program Overview Download Word File

Program Overview provides a quick overview of PROPHE.
For a fuller picture, consult the Background Paper and the rest of the PROPHE website.

What Is PROPHE?

PROPHE is a global network dedicated to building knowledge about one of the most striking tendencies in higher education around the world--the development of large and often vibrant private sectors.

PROPHE's knowledge mission focuses on discovery, analysis, and dissemination, as well as creation of an international base of researchers . PROPHE neither represents nor promotes private higher education. The core activity is scholarship, which, in turn, aims to inform public discussion and policymaking.

PROPHE is directed by Daniel C. Levy, Distinguished Professor of SUNY (State University of New York) and headquartered at the University at Albany. PROPHE's funding comes principally from the Ford Foundation, assisted by the University at Albany.

What Is PROPHE's Subject Matter?

PROPHE is interested in all facets of private higher education development and functioning. However, it presently devotes special attention to the growth and patterns they produce, particularly those that are common and powerful internationally. Some patterns involve evolution from prior patterns while many are largely new, and nearly all are barely studied. Priority subjects thus include:

• Demand-absorbing, vocational, and other non-university postsecondary private institutional options that are key to expanding access
• For-profit activity, whether at legally for-profit institutions or at legally nonprofit ones or involving for-profit/nonprofit partnerships
• Internationalization, including branch campuses and foreign ownership
• Attempts at culturally distinctive higher education
• Attempts at academically or socio-economically advantaged higher education

One concern throughout is distinctiveness. How distinctive is private from public higher education and how distinctive are private sub-sectors and institutions from each other and from public counterparts? Distinctiveness is assessed against isomorphism, a tendency to emulate and be non-distinctive. Related to this concern is assessment of private-public cooperation and conflict, including private-public partnerships.

What Is PROPHE's Geographic Scope?

PROPHE aims to be as inclusive as possible geographically. It gathers and welcomes data, laws, and other documents from all countries. It likewise will encourage serious research wherever it can. At the same time, in-depth analysis focuses on a selected number of important national cases. Collaborate Scholars are mostly from chosen large countries but Affiliates extend PROPHE's scope to other large countries and to smaller ones. Major comparisons are drawn across these countries and with the striking yet atypical U.S. case.

For the key countries PROPHE depends heavily on the development of a network of members. Working intensively with PROPHE's director, these scholars operate as a Group, with overlapping yet autonomous agendas, frameworks, and methods. PROPHE has a powerful mission in building a global base of young scholars.

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