There is No Such Thing as Free Higher Education: A Global Perspective on the (Many) Realities of Free Systems (original) (raw)

Financing Higher Education: Worldwide Perspectives and Policy Options (2014)

This paper deals with the international higher educational landscape, which is fraught with increasing institutional austerity, financial pressures on students and families as governments turn to tuition fees to supplement inadequate governmental revenues, the search for ways to expand accessibility in the face of these increasing student- and family-borne costs, and the quest for ways to inject efficiency into institutions that are notoriously resistant to change—especially to changes that endanger the job security of faculty or that call for alterations in either curricula or instructional methodology that seem to violate long-established principles of the academy.

Fairness in Access to Higher Education in a Global Perspective

about access expansion in a range of countries has proliferated (Brunsdon, it has remained within the intellectual and political boundaries of national traditions and policies. And despite recent innovative work on access policies from an international and comparative angle (i.e. Eggins 2010; there has, to date, been no global exchange concerning the moral and normative bases for claims of access to higher education. Assuming that higher education will remain a scarce commodity, the question as to how it should be allocated, on what grounds, and based on which combination of need (societal and individual), talent, merit (academic and personal), and ability to contribute has obvious moral and ethical implications which are, however, scarcely articulated.

Economic Models of Higher Education: An International Perspective

International Dialogues on Education Journal, 2015

As other sectors, higher education can be characterized by the combination of market mechanisms and state intervention in its funding and organization. Although higher education systems of developed countries pursue similar goals (provide high-level manpower, meet individual and social demands, etc.) and face similar challenges (massive expansion, internationalization, MOOCs, etc.) their economic models differ significantly. In some countries, universities are public and charge no or very low tuition fees, whereas in other countries, the cost-sharing with parents and students is much more demanding. The paper will try to underscore and explain these differences by drawing on the lessons of economic analysis and on the historical and cultural background of countries.

The Politics of Higher Education: Common Misunderstandings about the Financing of Higher Education.”

This paper deals with the rich mixture of financially, politically, and ideologically contested policy themes of college and university finance, student access, tuition fees, financial assistance, and student loans. Specifically, it deals with certain beliefs-many of which may be valid in some countries, and all of which have at least germs of truth as well as many serious and thoughtful proponents-that I believe in many ways to be incomplete or incorrect, at least as general propositions to guide policy, especially in low-and middle-income countries. I have heard and read these beliefs expressed by scholars, politicians, and practitioners, many of them ideologically opposed to cost-sharing-or the worldwide shift of higher education costs from being borne predominantly or exclusively by governments, or taxpayers, to being borne as well by parents and students-and unconvinced that tuition fees and student loans are higher educational policy imperatives for most countries.

Realizing Fee-Free Higher Education in South Africa; Dreams and Nightmares

The Journal of Quality in Education

The component of free rudimentary education is guaranteed and recognized by the 1996 Constitution, the African National Congress (ANC) Freedom Charter as well as other international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Conversely that there exists no component of free higher education in South African laws and statutory guidelines, let alone in the international arena advocating for free higher education. Notwithstanding this fact, reality has shown that free higher education has not been realized despite students’ petition which fact has instigated them to take part in severe dissents from the four walls of South Africa. This paper argues that free higher education is not realizable the South African government has limited resources and the economy is on its knees. The paper further argues that for the South African government to fund free higher education it needs a wel...

"FREE" EDUCATION

Academia Letters, 2021

The idea of free education is quite alluring in all of its egalitarian glory. The possibility of allowing the poor, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized access to education, and thus uplift these people from the grip of poverty, is an intoxicating concept. However, no matter how glorious a desire is, it may be an unachievable goal. The European Model of Free Education Oft cited, and held up as a model for the world, is Europe. However, according to Marcus (2019), "being unable to charge tuition means universities are overcrowded and thinly stretched, and those hard-pressed taxpayers are unfairly forced to fill the void." Tuition is free at public higher education institutions in many European countries, but this free tuition does not include living expenses. In Germany, students can get additional monies to cover living expenses (Marcus, 2019), but students contend that the money is insufficient, and many still have to work. An anecdotal example came up in the United States when discussing the subject of free education. Students who argue for free education also want things like rent, food, health care, and transportation included. Marcus (2019) discusses that the more free things included in the list of free education, the more of these burdens then fall on the taxpayer. These people may or may not have children that would benefit from free education, so they might not be so inclined to support it. Additionally, Marcus (2019) claims that with ever-increasing taxes, students with degrees tend to move to locales with a lower tax base after graduation, leaving a shrinking number of taxpayers and a higher percentage of responsibility.

The public/private divide in higher education: A global revision

Higher Education, 2007

Our common understandings of the public/private distinction in higher education are drawn from neo-classical economics and/or statist political philosophy. However, the development of competition and markets at the national level, and the new potentials for private and public goods created by globalisation in higher education, have exposed weaknesses in the traditional notions of public/private. For example, (1) the statist notion that higher education is always/already a public good blinds us to its role in producing scarce positional private goods, even in free systems; (2) because there is no global state, both statists and neo-liberals model the global higher education environment simply as a trading environment without grasping the potential for global public goods in education -goods that are subject to non-rivalry or non-excludability, and broadly available across populations, on a global scale. Yet higher education in one nation has the potential to create positive and negative externalities in another; and all higher education systems and institutions can benefit from collective systems e.g. that facilitate cross-border recognition and mobility. The paper sets out to revise public/ private in higher education. Rather than defining public/private in terms of legal ownership, it focuses on the social character of the goods. It argues that public/private goods are not always zero sum and under certain conditions provide conditions of possibility for each other. It proposes (a) units in national government that focus specifically on cross-border effects; (b) global policy spaces -taking in state agencies, individual universities, NGOs and commercial agents -to consider the augmentation, distribution of and payment for global public goods.

International trends in the public and private financing of higher education

Prospects, 2011

Beginning by analyzing the major qualitative and quantitative changes in higher education around the world, this article examines international trends in their financial implications. It then demonstrates the state's inability to bear the entire rising financial burden, and explores the role of self-financing, and of the non-profit and for-profit private sectors, in sharing the enrolment and the cost burden. Examples of cost-sharing from around the world are given, with an analysis of the complexities and ambiguities of the meanings of public and private in reference to financing higher educational institutions. A discussion of private-public partnerships follows, and of the role that non-profit and forprofit cross-border higher education plays in financing. The conclusion offers eight policy themes for coping with the underlying situation of financial strategy and the simultaneous need to supplement scarce public revenues with private revenues, meanwhile increasing access to and participation in higher education for those not yet benefiting from it. Keywords Higher education finance Á Resource allocation Á Cost sharing Á Private higher education Á Privatization of public higher education Á Cross-border higher education Á Student financial assistance All over the world, higher education is at a crossroads today. Significant changes, both qualitative and quantitative, are challenging and changing institutions of higher education and the roles these institutions are playing in their economies and larger societies. Among the most salient qualitative changes are the following five. First, developments in information and communication technology (ICT) are revolutionising our day-today lives as well as our colleges and universities. ICT is the source of

The Provision of Free Higher Education in South Africa: A Proper Concept or a Parable

The provision of free-higher education is one of the most debated issues in South Africa today. The issue of free-higher education has drawn many commentators from sectors such as the media, business and within the political dominions. The main argument is where will the money to fund free-higher education will come from, whether the provision of free-higher education in South Africa is a proper concept or just a parable and also the terms of reference with regards to the provision of free-higher education in the country. By strictly examining the available and relevant literature on the concept of free-higher education in South Africa, the study was able to comprehensively understand the dynamics, implications and probability of providing free-higher education. Infrastructure challenges and economic growth are undoubtedly the major factors hindering the country from providing free-higher education, and unfortunately, with the government already forging ahead with implementing free-higher education without a proper and extensive feasibility study, the hasty implementation of free-higher education will have devastating implications for growth and service delivery in the country.