This article examines how the value of higher education (HE) is currently being (re)framed in two European countries: England and Portugal. HE has been central to a global discourse on the future of knowledge economy, whilst also being subject to the policy framework of New Public Management. Being so, the changing value of HE is related to the ways in which its missions are understood and must be considered within the context of massification, as well as of a growing importance of employability. Drawing on published research and also considering national policy documents and statistical data produced by international organizations, the analysis demonstrates how HE in these two countries is currently being (re)framed, recognizing differences and similarities that express national specificities, as well as exploring how these have evolved within the wider national and pan-national policy context. Overall, the examination demanded going beyond the marketization approach by complementing it with the idea of public good and leads us to stress the importance of the tension between these two approaches as an analytical framework to better understand the changes occurring in different national contexts, within a transnational framework in which the knowledge economy and the central role of HE seems to be indisputably accepted.

本文探讨了目前在两个欧洲国家（英格兰和葡萄牙）如何（重新）界定高等教育（HE）的价值。HE在关于知识经济的未来的全球讨论中一直处于中心地位，同时也受新公共管理政策框架的约束。因此，高等教育的价值变化与理解其使命的方式有关，必须在大众化的背景下加以考虑，以及就业能力的重要性日益提高。该分析借鉴了已发表的研究报告，还考虑了国际组织提供的国家政策文件和统计数据，该分析表明了这两个国家的高等教育目前是如何（重新）组织的，并认识到表达国家特点的异同，以及探索这些变化在更广泛的国家和泛国家政策环境中的演变。总体而言，该审查要求通过对公共利益的概念进行补充来超越市场化方法，并导致我们强调这两种方法之间的张力作为一种分析框架，以便更好地了解在不同国家背景下发生的变化的重要性。毫无疑问地接受了知识经济和高等教育的核心作用的跨国框架。