Public Goods and Public Policy: what is Public Good, and who and what Decides?

Higher education is usually seen as serving the public good, especially when funded directly by the state, and because of the ‘social benefit efficiency gains and potential equity effects on opportunity and reduced inequality’ (McMahon, 2009, p. 255). Calhoun (2006, p. 19) argues that public support for higher education is only given and maintained according to its capacity, capability, and willingness, to ‘educate citizens in general, to share knowledge, to distribute it as widely as possible in accord with publically articulated purposes’