This pioneering volume, the first examining family-owned or managed higher education institutions (FOMHEI) is organized in three sections. The initial chapters provide an overview and analysis on the phenomenon and consider how the limited existing research is relevant. Most important however, are the institutional and national case studies that are the heart of this volume. The bulk of the book is dedicated to these specific institutional and national cases. The book concludes with a summary and final observations based on these cases.
Most of our authors are involved with the universities that they are writing about and in this respect this book differs from most research analyses. This has both advantages and drawbacks. Most of our authors are not academic researchers and they are rather deeply involved with their institutions. They bring a depth of commitment and understanding that is rare in more academic analyses. At the same time, they are clearly not objective observers.
Private higher education is the fastest growing segment of higher education globally and in 2019 a significant force in most of the world. In many countries, including most of Latin America and significant parts of Asia, private postsecondary institutions educate a majority of students. A surprisingly large part of global private postsecondary education consists of institutions owned or managed by families, often with family groups stretching back several generations. These family-owned or managed higher education institutions (FOMHEIs) are as diverse as private higher education itself. Despite the importance of FOMHEIs, this sector has received no attention from researchers or analysts and the institutions themselves have not conducted any analysis of their role in the broader postsecondary firmament. This book is the first effort to understand, describe, and analyze FOMHEIs. Even after the extensive research undertaken in the development of this volume, we still have no idea of the scope and size of this sector. We do know that it is much larger and more important than we anticipated.
The idea for this book came when Philip Altbach, founding director of the Center of International Higher Education (CIHE), noticed that several of his graduate students from Asia were sons or daughters of families who owned universities and who were being educated to go into the “family business.” Altbach reflected on this phenomenon in his 2005 article “Universities: Family Style,” perhaps the first article on this topic ever written (Altbach, 2005). Unable to find support for research, Altbach waited until 2017 to undertake this project in partnership with Hans de Wit, director of CIHE, and Edward Choi, a doctoral student and graduate assistant at CIHE at the time, and son of a family that owns a university in Korea. We undertook this project without any external funding, only with resources from the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. Mathew Allen, faculty director for the Institute for Family Entrepreneurship at Babson College, joined the project. Allen was fascinated by this hitherto unresearched aspect of family businesses.
Given the extent and importance of FOMHEIs, it is somewhat surprising that there has been no research or analysis of this sector. Our research indicates that FOMHEIs number in the thousands globally and in a few countries (such as Brazil, Colombia, India, Korea, the Philippines) they constitute a large proportion of private higher education institutions. This pioneering book offers insights into this hitherto largely unknown dimension of global postsecondary education.
The organization of the book begins with consideration of private higher education with special reference to FOMHEIs. We were assisted in this effort by Daniel Levy, distinguished professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and a prominent scholar of private higher education. He provides an overview, placing FOMHEIs in the broader context of private higher education. Mathew Allen and Edward Choi provide an analysis of FOHMEIs from the perspective of family entrepreneurship. Finally, Edward Choi, Mathew Allen, Hans de Wit, and Philip Altbach reflect on the implications of our case study chapters.
The heart of the book is the case study chapters. We asked colleagues in twelve countries to write about their institutions as well as the broader situation of FOMHEIs in their country or region. These discussions yield important insights about FOMHEIs, including regional and institutional variations, varying patterns of ownership and governance, different family dynamics operating within the institutions and many others. Because of the paucity of research and researchers on this topic, we imposed no methodological strictures on our case study authors. This book is a first effort to describe and understand this important higher education phenomenon. What we might lack in traditional methodological rigor we more than gain in knowledge of an unexplored dimension of higher education.
References
Altbach, P. G. (2005). Universities: Family style. International Higher Education, 39, 10–11.