Chapter 1: Introduction: Higher Education Funding and Access in International Perspective

Across the developed world, the level of tuition fees charged by universities is one of the most hotly debated public policy issues. Student demonstrations against increases in tuition fees have resulted in changes to government policy in Germany and Québec, and a growing movement in the USA is promoting ‘free college’ for young people. In the 2017 UK General Election, the Labour Party’s pledge to abolish tuition fees in England was one of its most successful policies in attracting the youth vote, radically improving its electoral prospects.

It is often assumed that countries with low tuition fees are also likely to do well in terms of access and equity. However, as argued by contributors to this book, there is no simple link between fees, equity and access. Their arguments are supported by OECD analysis, which shows that some countries with high tuition fees, such as Australia and New Zealand, have high participation rates – but so do some countries with no tuition fees, such as Denmark and Slovenia. Austria, a median country with respect to the level of tuition fees, ranks at the bottom in terms of entry rates, close to Italy. England, by way of contrast, has the highest tuition fees of any EU country but is close to the median in terms of participation rates. This is probably due to its state-underpinned, income-contingent loans system, which means that higher education is free at the point of delivery, and graduates repay 9% of their salary above a certain threshold.