344 Global Ethics for Leadership
and ambitions of college students. When universities openly and
increasingly pursue commercialisation, it powerfully legitimises
and reinforces pursuit of economic self-interest by students and
contributes to widespread sense among them that they are in col-
lege solely to gain career skills and credentials. [...] [S]tudent
idealism is even more sharply diminished, student disengagement
is even more sharply increased, when students see their universi-
ties abandon academic values and scholarly pursuits to openly,
enthusiastically function as entrepreneurial, ferociously competi-
tive, profit-making corporations.^282
Recognising the competing interests, Frost notes:
It often comes about that what is required from the ethical point
of view of one practice might come to clash with what is required
ethically within another.^283
The challenge for higher education - triangulating governance, inno-
vation, and academic purpose - will be to establish the balance that en-
sures the character and purpose of the university responsive to the global
demands in the twenty-first century. Fundamental to academic purpose
is the notion of quality, taking into account the essential aspects of aca-
demic relevance and excellence.
27.6 The Third Value: Quality
One of the most enduring concerns of higher education is quality. It
is evident in all of the global instruments on higher education, as well as
in most national policy documents. An incontestable correlation between
poor quality education and low learning levels and learning deficits or
inequalities has ensured that the provision of quality education remains
282
283 Harkavy 2006c: 14^
BBVA OpenMind 2013: 66