ECONOMIES OF SCALE AND THE LOCUS OF EXPANSION IN UNIVERSITIES IN THE UK

In a previous article, Struther Arnott recommended that expansion of t he university system should be concentrated entirely in, those univers ities with fewer than 600 teaching staff, which he advocated as the id eal size of university in the UK. Larger universities were alleged to suffer diseconomies of scale arising from unspecified problems of orga nization and management. Michael Bourn challenges many of these argume nts as fundamentally flawed. It is suggested, instead, that research-b ased and teaching-based universities will develop divergent patterns o f average cost per student.