The marketization of education in Hungary: Education and social mobility in theory and practice

It is my argument that the reform of Hungarian higher education is subordinate to a neoliberal agenda involving the marketization of public services driven by the international financial community through the policies of the World Bank and the European Union. Specifically, the five most frequently cited goals of the reform of Hungarian higher education (the integration of state-run higher education institutions, increased institutional autonomy, increased mobility of students, faculty and graduates between nations, institutions and levels of education, the continued massification of higher education; and the implementation of Western quality assurance practices) serve one of two principal ends: the introduction of cost recovery mechanisms in the provision of social services and the transition to a knowledge-based economy (the former championed by the World Bank, the latter by the European Union). Lamentably, Hungarian policy makers seem more concerned with the interests of the international financial community than the well being of the Hungarian population. Consequently, the potential benefits of the restructuring of Hungarian higher education cannot be meaningfully evaluated without also considering the largely deleterious impact of the marketization of what was once considered a public service. Thus, there is an irreconcilable contradiction in the Hungarian government's ongoing campaign to win public support for reforms not clearly in the interest of the Hungarian population.