Status competition in higher education

2026-08-07

Simon Marginson *

DOI：10.1007/s10734-026-01746-7

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A puzzle for neoliberal reformers in higher education is that regardless of the extent to which systems are remade along neoliberal lines, the outcomes are less transformative than expected. This is because neoliberal competition is articulated by a deeply-ingrained social relation peculiar to higher education: status (prestige) oriented comparison and vertical ordering. Relations between institutions within society are framed by status competition. Status goals permeate the elite sub-sector and shape the middle tiers as the impact of university ranking has shown. Only low status institutions are demand responsive and efficiency driven as imagined by neoliberalism. Yet leading universities have adjusted to meritocratic neoliberalism better than this suggests, drawing on market competition as a legitimating device while building cumulative advantage within it. The neoliberal university market articulates the status order while also being negated by it. The paper focuses on higher education in the Anglosphere. After theorising the dynamics of status competition it tracks the transition from neoliberal regulation and global rankings to post neoliberalism, in which some governments have become impatient with the primacy of status logic over economic logic, and the populist far-right has directly challenged the status of leading universities. Whether this will weaken the determining role of status remains to be seen.

Keywords:

Higher education

Elite universities

Competition

Social status

University autonomy

Neoliberalism

Status competition in higher education

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