Higher education has expanded at astonishing rates around the world. We seek to understand the oppositions that periodically arise, which may produce enrollment declines and/or imposition of political controls. The post-1945 growth of higher education was – to a greater extent than is often recognized – propelled by the liberal, and later neoliberal, international order. Oppositions arise from illiberal alternatives, which also may organize globally. The recent weakening of the global liberal order, associated with growing populism and nationalism, creates conditions for a new wave of oppositions. We hypothesize that attacks on higher education emerge in countries less integrated into world society and in countries linked to international structures that support illiberal alternatives. We examine cross-national data on higher education over the period 1960–2017. Enrollments and funding are higher in societies more tightly linked to world society and lower in countries tied to illiberal international organizations. Analyses of enrollments in various fields, constraints on academic freedom, and terrorist attacks on education institutions show similar pattern. Finally, we observe heterogeneity in the forms of illiberal opposition: countries that suppress academic freedom generally are less likely to restrict enrollments.

高等教育在世界范围内以惊人的速度扩大。我们寻求了解周期性出现的反对意见，这些反对意见可能会导致入学率下降和/或实施政治控制。1945 年后高等教育的发展——在更大程度上——比人们通常认识到的——受到自由国际秩序以及后来的新自由主义国际秩序的推动。反对来自不自由的替代方案，这些替代方案也可能在全球范围内组织起来。最近全球自由秩序的削弱，与日益增长的民粹主义和民族主义有关，为新一波反对浪潮创造了条件。我们假设，对高等教育的攻击出现在不太融入世界社会的国家以及与支持非自由选择的国际结构相关的国家。我们研究了 1960-2017 年期间的跨国高等教育数据。与世界社会联系更紧密的社会的入学率和资助率较高，而与非自由国际组织联系在一起的国家则较低。对各个领域的招生、对学术自由的限制以及对教育机构的恐怖袭击的分析显示出类似的模式。最后，我们观察到非自由反对形式的异质性：压制学术自由的国家通常不太可能限制入学。