The polytechnical schools in Great Britain, previously low in social and educational status, have in recent years raised themselves on these dimensions, concomitant with corresponding changes along other dimensions such as the social strata from which their students are drawn. This process is given the name "institutional mobility." Two elements of this institutional development are considered: first, and in most detail, the set of propositions and presumptions that explains how and why the polytechnics developed along the lines planned by higher education policymakers; and second, the thesis of "policy drift" in the development of nonuniversity higher education in the United Kingdom. The latter refers to changes in control due to a loose and pluralistic administrative organization for this set of institutions. (MSE)