The discussion around private universities in Egypt is no longer limited to a technical debate on a new type of higher education institution. These universities represent not just a qualitative addition to the educational map, but embody a different logic that redefines the very essence of education: from being a social right tied to the idea of citizenship, to becoming a service contingent on the ability to pay. With every new university established by a presidential decree, a window of free education closes, and the boundaries of who has the right to advance and who is pushed to the margins are redrawn.
This phenomenon did not emerge suddenly. Since 2020, the Egyptian state has begun what it calls the “expansion of private universities,” a path that reached its peak in May 2025 when presidential decrees were issued to establish twelve universities in one go. However, this quantitative expansion has not translated into a qualitative increase in access to education opportunities. Instead, it came within a context that reflects deeper shifts in the role and functions of the state. While public universities suffer from chronic underfunding, deteriorating infrastructure, and a lack of incentives for faculty members, the alternative is presented in the form of universities that rely on high fees and are managed according to market principles, with no transparency in performance or clear purpose.
It is claimed that these universities are “non-profit,” but the reality tells a different story: tuition fees approach the 100,000 EGP ($2,000) mark annually, without clear quality indicators or genuine community oversight, and in the absence of a tangible role in scientific research or national development. In a country where the average family income does not exceed 6,000 EGP ($120) per month, private universities become exclusive to those who can afford them, while the majority remain confined to overcrowded and marginalized public universities.
This transformation is not limited to the field of education but opens a wide door for questioning the position of the citizen in the eyes of the state: Does the authority still see itself as a guarantor of equal opportunities, or has its role changed fundamentally? In the current model, the student is no longer a citizen with a fundamental right to education, but a customer in a market, where the service is sold according to their ability to pay. Thus, the university becomes a “service provider,” knowledge becomes a “commodity,” and the educational opportunity becomes a privilege only available to those who can afford to pay the price.
The problem with private universities does not lie in their existence per se, but in the way they are presented as an alternative to public universities, rather than a complement to them. They are marketed as a driver of development, but in reality, they are tools for exclusion and the reproduction of class privilege. Instead of launching a national project for comprehensive reform in higher education, the state chose a path of gradual withdrawal, raising the banner of “self-financing,” placing the full cost of education on families, while presenting the university as a semi-private service wrapped in the label “private” with no clear legal or institutional definition.
This withdrawal was not neutral; rather, it was a manifestation of an integrated economic and political trend that began in the 1990s with the implementation of “structural adjustment” programs in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund. The state redefined its social priorities based on reducing burdens rather than expanding rights. In this context, public spending on education declined, infrastructure deteriorated, faculty salaries eroded, and public universities were left without a clear reform vision or a genuine rescue plan, making their deterioration appear as a deliberate prelude to justify accepting the private alternative.
What exacerbates the crisis is that these universities do not only collect exorbitant fees but also operate without any real community oversight. They are established by sovereign decisions, with boards of directors appointed from above, and their budgets and transparency reports are not published. They operate according to a logic closer to private service companies than to public educational institutions. It is claimed that they are “non-profit,” but there is no independent accountability mechanism to verify this claim, no scholarships are offered based on fair or transparent criteria, and no real opportunities are provided for underprivileged groups.
With the absence of a legally binding definition of the term “private university,” hybrid educational entities are established that neither belong to the public sector nor are treated as private entities, yet combine the advantages of both without being subject to the obligations of either. They benefit from state support without being obligated to ensure transparency, achieve social justice in admissions, or provide education with a public concept. In this institutional ambiguity, profit margins widen, and the circles of accountability shrink.
More dangerously, these universities do not contribute to building educational competencies or developing a national knowledge system, but instead rely on draining resources from public universities by offering direct financial incentives. This leaves public universities in a state of ongoing human and intellectual hemorrhaging. Thus, private universities transform into environments for consuming knowledge rather than producing it, while public universities, which host the vast majority of students, are left to a fate of deterioration and marginalization, rebuilding a closed class system within the educational field itself.
This change can only be understood as a component within a broader political and social project, in which the map of privileges is redrawn and the scope of movement is narrowed. Class mobility tools are redistributed in alignment with the logic of the “neoliberal authoritarian state,” which tightens its grip on the public sphere and transforms rights into conditional services. The university, in this context, is no longer concerned with producing knowledge or expanding social integration, but has become a tool for regulating the symbolic field. The elite are redefined through the ability to access paid education, and social classes are reproduced through a system of admission and selection that recognizes financial ability, not merit.
In light of this deviation, the university loses its role as a laboratory for political imagination and social critique, and transforms into an institution that validates the status quo rather than changing it. Its relationship with the student is reshaped not as a citizen holding a right, but as a client who generates revenue and consumes content. Knowledge is reduced to “educational content” that does not necessarily carry a liberating horizon, but is often packaged in ready-made formats that cater to both market and security considerations.
Ultimately, the crisis of private universities is not limited to their cost or legal ambiguity, but manifests in their role as part of a larger process of emptying education of its social and political content, transforming it into a tool for reproducing inequality within a governing structure that subjects the university space, like the public sphere, to the same logic: no voice is louder than the logic of the market, and no right exists except for those who can pay for it.
In this sense, private universities are not a deviation from policies, but a clear expression of them. They are not a failed educational project but a successful class-based policy.
In the face of this complex scene, rhetorical criticisms or traditional defenses of “free education” are not enough. It becomes essential to propose alternatives that restore the idea of education as a right and dismantle the structure that has shaped private universities as tools for class sorting. What is required is not just a reform in form, but a radical revision of the logic that governs the relationship between the state and education.
The first of these alternatives, and perhaps the most urgent, is to rebuild public universities as a national priority, not as remnants of a socialist era. Without a strong, well-funded, and administratively and academically independent public university, educational justice cannot be achieved. This requires a five-year plan to rehabilitate infrastructure, raise faculty salaries, and restore the university’s role in scientific research and community service. Funding must be linked to performance and need-based indicators, with guarantees that this does not exacerbate disparities between universities.
As for private universities, their continued existence outside any system of accountability or transparency constitutes a direct violation of the educational institution concept. The law regulating them should be amended to require these institutions to publish their budgets, provide periodic academic performance reports, and allocate a genuine percentage of seats for underprivileged groups based on announced criteria and independent oversight.
Moreover, the acceptance and scholarship processes cannot be left solely to market forces. A unified, transparent, and fair scholarship system must be established, managed by an independent body outside the universities’ administrations. This system must consider academic excellence and social need, ensuring that assistance does not become a tool for marketing or individual exceptions.
Additionally, while linking education to the job market is necessary, it should not come at the expense of the university’s enlightening, cultural, and social role. What is required is an education system that re-establishes the university’s connection with society, not just with corporations, and returns knowledge to its role as a driver of development, not merely as a tool for employment.
Finally, none of this makes sense unless academic freedom and critical thinking are protected. An effective university cannot be imagined without true academic independence that ensures freedom of topics, the right to differ, and the presence of mechanisms for representation and accountability within the campus. Education reform starts here—by respecting the intellect of both the professor and the student, not by building campuses with glass facades.
The crisis of private universities in Egypt is not a temporary phenomenon; it is a true reflection of deeper shifts in the state’s vision of its social function. From Cairo University, which was established as a national, liberating institution aiming to shape individuals, to private universities promoted as gateways to “excellence” while closing the door to those without means, this shift reflects a transition from a state-led project to a market-driven one.
For decades, higher education was one of the pillars of social mobility, an open window for children from middle and lower classes, and a space for creating new elites that represented the diversity of society. Today, however, higher education itself has become a tool for freezing mobility and reproducing privilege, reshaped according to criteria that are not measured by knowledge, but by the ability to pay and conform to market logic.
In this context, the university loses its traditional role as a critical institution and turns into a space devoid of tension, intellectual conflict, or genuine accountability. The slogans of “innovation” and “excellence” promoted in this environment are nothing more than institutional decoration that hides deep intellectual fragility, a lack of freedom, and a deliberate separation between education and the social context it is supposed to serve.
The issue here is not merely infrastructure or high fees, but a governing philosophy that reshapes society through education, following the logic of soft obedience: a university that does not open horizons, but recycles what is already in place; that does not disturb, but rewards compliance; that does not question, but consolidates privilege. Such a model does not produce knowledge but creates silence.
In the end, the critical question remains: Whose interests are served by the restructuring of education in Egypt? Do we want an education system that reproduces an isolated elite, or do we want an education system that rebuilds the public sphere and lays the foundations for justice that is inseparable from citizenship?
True reform starts here, with this question, not with the number of universities or the shape of their buildings. Education is not a number in a ministerial statement; it is a human structure that only works if it is built on rights, not on privilege.
References
3. Al-Masry Al-Youm. (2024). “Details of Private University Fees for 2024-2025.”
4. Ministry of Higher Education: Private Universities.
5. Official Gazette – Issue #20, May 19, 2025.
6. 3.8 million university students in Egypt during 23/24 academic year.
