The fight for funding from student fees forces universities to act more like business corporations than higher education institutions.
The argument
The objection is that tuition fees do not merely shift who pays for higher education; they change what a university is, by making it dependent on winning customers. As universities compete for funding that arrives with each enrolled student, they must market themselves and act like a business, because under such a system an institution that fails to attract students fails financially regardless of the quality of its teaching or research. What follows is a change in what the institution optimises for. When attracting more pupils becomes the main goal, profit becomes the ultimate aim, since recruitment is the mechanism by which the income is secured. Proponents stress that this does not require anyone within the university to be cynical. It is a consequence of the funding structure: an institution whose survival depends on enrolment will reorganise itself around enrolment, and decisions about which courses to open, which to close and where to direct spending will be answered by reference to what recruits. The cost falls on everything that does not. Other valuable metrics of a good education are ignored in favour of profit, because they exert no comparable pressure on the institution's finances. Teaching that is demanding rather than popular, subjects with small intakes, and the unhurried development of a student over several years all become liabilities under a model that rewards volume, even though each is central to what a university was previously understood to provide. The conclusion is that the university experience ceases to be valued for its capacity to spread knowledge and to develop students' skills and experience, and is valued instead for what it yields. Profit becomes paramount and the initial importance of the institution is lost, which is why proponents argue that the case for free higher education is about the nature of the institution and not only about the cost to the student.
Context
If student fees are meant to fund universities then, naturally, there will be a competition for who can attract the most students. In this way, universities are turned into business and the true value of a university education is monetised.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Other arguments say that the reason universities act like businesses is a result of neoliberal policy-making rather than a direct consequence of changes to funding.
Rejecting the premises
Rejecting P1. Universities without fees will also behave like a business if they are being run according to neoliberal policies.