‘What school did you go to?’ Status competition as a determining factor in higher education

Upcoming seminar: ‘What school did you go to?’ Status competition as a determining factor in higher education
Date: 9 April, 2026 (Thu)
Time: 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM HK
Venue: Room RMS206, Runme Shaw Building, HKU & Zoom

Speaker: Prof. Simon Marginson, Professor of Higher Education at the University of Bristol, Professor of Higher Education (emeritus) at the University of Oxford and Joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education.
Registration: Scan the QR code or use the link below to join:
https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0p1PsmwqSMXSgEC

Abstract:

People want a ranked order of universities that explains higher education, defines and calibrates its value and guides decisions. Everywhere most students want to enter the most selective universities that enjoy the highest social esteem, most faculty want to work at top universities, and all university presidents in their heart would love to be number one. The status order is reproduced and reinforced by social stratification and inequality outside higher education: there is remarkable acceptance of a higher education system that turns out graduate of unequal value, and also collectively reproduced by the common culture and practices of higher education itself. To set aside the power to recycle and create status would be to set aside much of the sector’s power of attraction and its legitimation.

In this talk, the speaker will explain how comparison-based status competition in higher education shapes dominant understandings of the sector and how it is reinforced by the cumulative advantages of elite institutions. The speaker will also introduce how different higher education systems apply the logics of status, drawing on comparative perspectives such as those between the Chinese and European systems.

About the speaker:

Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Bristol, Professor of Higher Education (emeritus) at the University of Oxford and Joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education. He is also an Honorary Professor at Tsinghua University, Visiting Research Professor at the University of Hong Kong, Guest Chair Professor at Peking University, and Professorial Associate of the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of Academia Europaea. From 2015-2024 he was Director of the ESRC/RE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE). Simon’s research is focused primarily on global, international and comparative higher education, global science, higher education in East Asia, and the contributions of higher education to the common good. His most recent book is Global higher education in times of upheaval: On common goods, geopolitics and decolonization (Bloomsbury, February 2026).