The paper examines the ways in which higher education students in Ireland negotiate contemporary global transitions premised on improving competitiveness and opportunity in a higher education system driven by the ideology of the knowledgebased economy (HEA, 2011, OECD, 2004, 2006, 2013). Using data from a large cohort of students (4265) in three very different types of higher education institutions (Public University, Public Institute of Technology and a private for-profit College), and through the analysis of policy developments in recent years, the paper shows how there is an explicit requirement to create entrepreneurial students in Irish higher education. However, the paper also shows how this narrative is mediated by the students who are expecting to be better cared for in colleges than they are currently. It also highlights the importance of care and nurturing (affective relations) in the lives of students, especially female students, outside of and after college. It proposes that a broader understanding of care and affective relations is necessary to understand the new gendered resistance to globalised commercialisation in higher education.

Hay, S. & Kaptizke, C., 2009. 'Smart' state for a knowledge economy: reconstituting creativity through student subjectivity. British Journal of Sociology of Education , 30(2), pp. 151-164. Jessop, B., (2008). A cultural political economy of competitiveness and its implications for higher education. In: B. Jessop, N. Fairdough & R. Wodak, eds. Education and the Knowledge-Based Economy in Europe. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp. 14-39. Loxley, A., Seery, A. and Walsh, J. eds. 2014. Higher Education in Ireland: Practices, Policies and Possibilities. Basingtoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rose, N., (1999). Governing the soul; the shaping of the private self. 2 ed. London: Free Association Books.