Mergers in Higher Education

Do mergers, in fact, save money? Can mergers redress inequalities in the higher education system? How does a merger impact on the resultant curriculum of the combined institutions? Are certain kinds of mergers, such as voluntary mergers, more successful than others? Why do mergers so often fail to meet planning expectations? These are some of the intractable questions facing higher education restructuring that led a group of researchers at the University of Pretoria in South Africa to embark on broad, empirical studies on mergers in post-secondary education. The title demonstrates the primacy of politics in transitional contexts: indeed, each case study, in various ways, shows how government mandates are mediated within institutions and how institutional responses to these mandates together determine the merger outcomes.