In Irish higher education, austerity policies have given initial momentum to a shift from mainly public to increasingly private funding (including industry, corporate capital, grants for specific research activities and individual students). This regime follows an international trend. But in Ireland its full impact has been relatively recent, since it was implemented in response to the terms of the EU bailout as agreed by the Irish State in 2010. This chapter argues, from a political economy perspective, that it is corporate elites and employers and other private interests that benefit principally from the restructuring of higher education, for it suits their ‘human capital’ needs and their wish, with the state, to change the ideology and ethos of Irish higher education. We also attempt to explain, through reference to the social composition of universities, the option of emigration, and political legacies, why resistance to the Irish neoliberal narrative has as yet been muted in the universities.