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This paper explores the relationship between the diversity within a higher education system and five key factors, namely: the environment, policy intervention, funding, competition and co-operation, and ranking. The exploration is based on the extent to which higher education systems, particularly those of Australia and New Zealand, have accommodated distinctive forms of higher education institutions characterised by the older traditional university at one extreme, and the newer university of technology at the other. Twelve interdependent propositions on diversity are proposed and discussed. These propositions indicate the ways in which each of the five key factors may influence institutional diversity or convergence. In the majority of circumstances, the convergent tendencies of institutions will predominate unless very specific environmental and economic conditions prevail, and/or specific directed policy is implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Zealand higher education system is a small but complex arrangement of colleges, polytechnics, institutes of technology and universities that on the surface appears to display admirable diversity for a system that serves around four million people. However, while major legislation introduced in 1990 formalised four distinct types of public tertiary institution, in practical terms, the last 12 years have been characterised by the progressive convergence of institutional types. Through a brief historical review and the analysis of institutional mission and values statements, and published performance indicators, this article explores and illustrates different perspectives of diversity amongst New Zealand higher education institutions which have converged over the last 12 years. This convergence occurred during an extended period of deregulation in which the market has acted as a surrogate for overt government policy in shaping the direction of the system and the institutions within it. Even recent formal government policy supporting the development of strong and distinct institutional identities and greater differentiation amongst tertiary institutions has been thwarted by the same government's intervention to prevent system change by limiting the number of universities in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]