In July last year, two months after assuming his duties as minister for universities and science, David Willetts granted university status to BPP University College of Professional Studies, making it only the second private institution in England, after the University of Buckingham, to be given the power to award degrees.[*] BPP is nothing like the private but non-profit American universities which dominate the top of the World University Rankings. It is one of a new breed of private, for-profit institutions which have proliferated in the US over the past ten years. BPP, whose 14 regional campuses already have 36,500 students, has since 2009 been owned by the Apollo Group, the leading for-profit educational corporation in the US.

LRB 2 June 2011 | PDF Download