隨著柬埔寨經濟朝向市場化發展，其高等教育市場化也在1997年允許私立高等院校的成立中展開。整個柬埔寨高等教育之市場化，呈現出：一、去除政府壟斷，鼓勵高等教育私有化；二、增加學校自主，形塑高等教育多元化；三、設計相關配套，促進高等教育競爭性；四、建立評鑑品管制度，確保高等教育品質與效率等具體特徵。只是柬埔寨政府對高等教育市場化欠缺完整的計畫與理念，同時也未能有效進行品質管理與監督，使整個高等教育市場化的改革不但無法扭轉其傳統高等教育的問題，更無法在市場化的同時充分發揮必要的管理機制，導致高等教育之城鄉差距擴大與科系發展失衡，而競爭與品管環境之不健全，更影響教育品質的表現。

As Cambodia developed toward a market-oriented economy, the marketization of its higher education allowed the establishment of private higher education institutions in 1997. As a whole, marketization of higher education in Cambodia exhibit four specific characteristics. It include: (1)resulted in the removal of government monopoly in education and encouragement of higher education privatization; (2)increased school autonomy which shaped diversification in higher education; (3)facilitation in higher education competition from relevant measure designs ; and (4)establishment of evaluation and quality control system to ensure the quality and efficiency of higher education. However, the government of Cambodia lacked a comprehensive plan and goal for the marketization of higher education and was unable to efficiently control quality and supervise private higher education. Therefore, the reform was not only unable to resolve traditional higher education issues, but also failed to be a managing mechanism during marketization. As a result, the outcomes of Cambodia higher education marketization were widened educational gap between urban and rural areas, unbalanced development of higher education departments. Marketization of higher education in Cambodia also affected performance of education quality due to poor competition and quality regulations.