Date of Award

Summer 2026

Language

English

Embargo Period

8-14-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational Policy and Leadership

Program

Educational Policy and Leadership

First Advisor

Daniel C. Levy

Committee Members

Gilbert Valverde, Adrián Acosta

Keywords

Private higher education, Regulation, Ecucational policy

Subject Categories

Higher Education

Abstract

Low quality, excessive commercialization, fraud, profit in disguise, and predatory dynamics remain the most pressing regulatory challenges in the context of private higher education in Mexico. These problems have been largely attributed to the ineffectiveness of authorization mechanisms, which have repeatedly become the focus of controversy and criticism from social, academic, and media sectors regarding their role in shaping the development of the sector. Some observers blame the government for its inaction in the face of rapid institutional proliferation, as well as for maintaining authorization procedures that have proven to be ineffective gatekeepers of sectoral expansion. Others place responsibility on private providers themselves, accusing them of opportunism, calculation, and ill intent, as they seek to capture all possible resources to exploit students and deceive them. In any case, within the Mexican context there is a persistent perception that PHE consistently manages to elude regulatory oversight.

Globally, the regulation of private higher education has occupied a prominent place in public debate, yet it has received limited attention within the broader academic literature. Regulatory scholarship has approached the sector as a “rare object”, addressing it only sporadically. Higher education scholarship and private higher education studies have tended to treat regulation as a peripheral concern within studies of expansion, massification, and diversification. In Mexico, scholarship has largely explained the growth of private higher education through governmental action or inaction, leaving important gaps in the empirical evidence concerning the actual functioning, implementation, and effects of regulatory arrangements.

Building on these shortcomings, this study examines the relationship between regulation and private higher education by analyzing how non-elite private institutions in Mexico navigate authorization frameworks in pursuit of their institutional objectives. Employing a qualitative research design based on a multi-case study approach, and drawing on semi-structured interviews, content analysis, and the examination of media narratives, the study provides an empirically grounded account of how the regulation of private higher education operates in practice. It explores the ways in which non-elite institutions interact with regulatory authorities and demonstrates how these interactions generate spaces for strategic navigation, enabling institutions to maintain regulatory compliance while simultaneously advancing their organizational interests and goals.

The findings reveal that both regulatory authorities and non-elite private institutions understand and experience regulation in highly distinctive ways. Regulatory authorities do not understand themselves as regulators in the conventional sense; instead, they reinterpret their role through the adoption of alternative institutional identities that redirect the logic of authorization away from regulatory oversight and toward more functional concerns, including market enablement, bureaucratic management, and the preservation of institutional legitimacy. Non-elite private institutions, in turn, do not conceive authorization as a regulatory instrument but rather as a mechanism through which they reinforce their autonomy and consolidate their legitimacy. These understandings play a decisive role in shaping the patterns and pathways of regulatory navigation that emerge within the field.

The findings further identify the principal patterns through which non-elite private institutions engage with authorization regime in practice, revealing that regulatory navigation is deeply embedded in broader organizational projects of survival, competition, and profit generation. Among the most effective navigation strategies are territorial management, regulatory mastery, the delegation of compliance, and corruption. These strategies overlap, evolve, and interact dynamically across institutional trajectories, functioning primarily as mechanisms through which institutions create distance from regulatory authorities and constrain the reach of their intervention, thereby preserving organizational autonomy while advancing their institutional objectives.

These findings call for a broader reconsideration of both the effects of regulation on the expansion of private higher education in Mexico and the role of government in shaping the sector. Regulation can no longer be understood simply in terms of the absence of control but emerges through the interaction between institutions and authorities, each pursuing its own interests and priorities. Non-elite institutions do not merely operate within a permissive environment; they actively navigate regulation to sustain their operations and strengthen their market position. As a result, the government is displaced as the sole or central explanatory actor, while its authority is continuously constrained, negotiated, and at times surpassed by a field structured around interests, relationships, and interactions that extend beyond its direct control. From this perspective, neither the expansion of private higher education nor the outcomes of authorization can be attributed solely to governmental apathy, negligence, or incapacity. Nor would stronger political will, greater administrative effort, or a more informed state necessarily be sufficient to produce improved regulatory outcomes.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

Download

Share

COinS