Business and Industry are recognising that the social outcomes of doing business underpin their social licence to operate. The ISO 26000, to be introduced in 2008, will provide guidance on Social Responsibility (SR) for all types of organisations in both public and private sectors. The Global Reporting Initiative includes numerous social indicators in its reporting framework (GRI, 2006). Business and industry seem to be moving towards taking responsibility for the social effects of doing business, recognising that their organisations are embedded in community. Meanwhile in the field of education there has been a major shift in Australia towards private expenditure in the tertiary sector (OECD, 2006) accompanied by a shift of public subsidies to tertiary students themselves. Implicit in this funding shift is the message that tertiary education is a private rather than public good, belonging to individual students rather than the wider population. This paper explores the literature on the wider social benefits of higher education, most of which seem to be indirect, arising through the increased economic benefits to individuals. It points to the gaps in Australian research in this area.
