Institutional lifecycles in British higher education

Summary The twentieth century has witnessed exponential growth in the provision of higher education and this growth accelerates the dynamic of institutional change. The change structures discussed in the present paper can be summarized in a cyclical model of development as presented in Figure 8. Long-term development along familiar, accustomed lines is no longer the universal or ‘normal’ expectation — if indeed it ever was. Morphological change is probable, though the direction of that change may take time to clarify. One thing seems clear: the political and economic pressures on universities are much more intense now than they have ever been and these pressures can be expected to cause metamorphoses, mutations, births and deaths amongst our ‘population’ of higher education institutions.