Quality and variety competition in higher education

In this paper, we analyze a bidimensional quality competition between two higher education sectors characterised by different preferences (academic vs. vocational) as well as cost structures, and its impact on curriculum’s provision (type and quality), both in decentralised and social welfare maximisation settings. The students are heterogenous in terms of their valuation of quality and their intellectual type. We try to illustrate in this abstract setting some stylized facts as academic drift of vocational institutions as well as addressing more normative issue as the relative merits of binary or unitary models of higher education