The diversity of the English higher education system: a multilevel quantitative analysis

Although the diversity of higher education (HE) systems is a widely debated topic in literature, this has been rarely examined considering multiple levels of analysis. This article adopts both a multilevel and longitudinal perspective to study which dimensions of horizontal diversity diversified the English HE system most. Diversity, and how this has changed over time, is investigated at the level of the HE system (macro-level) at the level of homogeneous groups of universities, i.e. mission groups (meso-level), and at the level of individual universities (micro-level). The comprehensive multivariate quantitative analysis performed across the three levels of analysis shows the polarization between research and teaching orientation emerges as the dimension on which the HE system and universities horizontally diversify most together with the internationalization of the student body. The analysis furtherly suggests that mission groups well represent the diversity of the English HE system and universities’ membership in one of these groups emerged as an element that restrains distinctive institutional positioning patterns of universities. Younger universities and those not affiliated to any mission groups are indeed those that present changes in their strategic positioning paths over time, and thus affect more the diversity of the HE system. However, while the horizontal diversity of the HE system has slightly increased over time, this paper also suggests that competition has concurrently contributed to reinforcing the hierarchical stratification of English universities.