Much has been written about higher education but very little about the organisations of the state which increasingly determine its destiny. Employing the theory of educational change developed in the authors’ previous work, this book analyses the contribution each part of the state structure has made to the present condition of higher education. Beginning with the political parties and parliamentary committees, it shows how there has been a steady decline in support for the traditional values of autonomous university education and a growing belief in the accountability of higher education to the needs of the economy. It then proceeds to show how this ideological change was fostered by the DES and used to justify the development of bureaucratic mechanisms of management and control.