Allan Patience was educated at Monash University and the London School of Economics (LSE). He holds as PhD from the University of Melbourne. He has held chairs in universities in Australia and overseas and visiting academic appointments in the United Kingdom, Japan, and China. He is an honorary fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne.
"""This erudite and provocative book calls for not only governments, but everyone who cares about the future, to appreciate universities afresh. As Allan Patience carefully contends, public universities are too important to be starved and crushed. They are not corporations, or an industry. Students are not clients or a commodity. Today’s universities have their roots in ancient traditions and institutions stretched across Asia and the Middle East as well as Europe; communities of bold and creative minds, thinking deeply about big questions, pushing known boundaries. Universities house the academics who solve critical problems and civilize the world. The future health of both democracy and the planet relies on researchers and thinkers, not just being supported, but respected, valued and enabled"" -Angela Woollacott, Manning Clark Professor of History, The Australian National University ""Are universities headed for extinction? No, this book argues; but after the damage done by massification, commercialization and heavy-handed state control, their role urgently needs re-thinking. Treating the self-managing university as a vital public good, Allan Patience gives an eloquent defence of a humanist vision for higher education."" -Raewyn Connell, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney; author of The Good University. ""As this lucid and accessible book shows, the great liberal principles of Newman and Humboldt that once animated higher education - often more honoured in the breach than the observance - are now at risk of being lost entirely. Drawing on his experiences of a lifetime supporting and teaching in universities, Allan Patience urges us to return to these ideas, before it is too late."" - Lee Jones, Professor of International Relations and Politics, Queen Mary University of London; co-author of Saving Britain's Universities: Academic Freedom, Democracy and Renewal (2020)."