The three goods of higher education; as education,in its educative,and in its institutional practices

Although there has been considerable debate in contemporary literature on the erosion of the public good in higher education, most of it has been concentrated on the word ‘public’ rather than on the notion of ‘good’. Further, the idea of higher education and the organisations for its delivery have become conflated through a focus on the ‘good’ as inherent, intrinsic, and instrumental. An idea is proposed, that: higher education is intrinsically good; that aspects of its practice are feasibly inherently good; and institutional practices are instrumentally good. These three goods are commonly conflated rather than interwoven in our policymakers’ understanding of the contribution that higher education has for human flourishing and what contribution higher education providers make to the economics of society.