Higher Education Finance and Accessibility: An International Comparative Examination of Tuition and Financial Assistance Policies." Center for Comparative and Global Studies in Education. University at

Recent years have seen a dramatic, albeit uneven and still contested, shift in the burden of higher education costs from being borne predominately by government, or taxpayers, to being shared with parents and students. This “cost sharing, ” as articulated in Johnstone (1986, 1992, 1993b) may take the form of tuition, either being introduced where it did not hitherto exist, or being rapidly increased where it already does—"filling in, " as it were, for diminishing governmental/taxpayer support. (China and the UK, although with totally different social-political-economic systems and at totally different stages in their expansion of higher educational participation, are both examples of a recent introduction of tuition fees.) "Cost sharing " may also take the form of public institutions charging more nearly "break even, " or "full cost " fees for room, board, books, and other costs of student living that may formerly have been covered mainly by government. In other cases, the shift of the cost burden from government to student and family may come in the form of a reduction in student grants, or in the “effective grants” represented by student loan subsidies in the form of very low rates of interest. Finally, the shift may come about through public policies shifting enrollments from a heavil