Rolling Stone has a good  article on how higher education is being dismantled in many parts of the USA – a word of warning for those that would like to see more market forces being allowed to run free. The UK seems to be following down this road at the moment as been discussed here

Only one University in the UK (as far as we know) ever got into very serious trouble , the question is would any Minister want to be the first to have a University go bankrupt on their watch? I suspect not.

In the US the latest problem in the private sector is “the high-profile bankruptcy of Corinthian Colleges earlier this month amid a wave of fraud investigations shows that the expansion of for-profit schools has hit its limit.”  I am unsure of the latter point given the worship of market forces and the general disdain for the public sector in the USA.