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In recent years, and under the pressure of increasing public deficits, a number ofcountries have decided to increase university fees to compensate for reductions inteaching subsidies financed by taxpayers. Perhaps the best known case is that of theUK. In this paper we analyze a similar policy adopted in Catalonia, Spain. Tuitionfees increased 66 percent in the 2012-2013 academic year to compensate for thereduction in public subsidies used to finance Catalan university teaching activities.Interestingly, the increase in fees was progressive, meaning that there was a feewaiver in function of family income. We analyze the distributional impact of thispolicy change, showing that this progressive tuition fee does not have a differentialimpact on the dropout rate of students of dierent socioeconomic status. Sinceeligibility for the full tuition waiver is determined by a sharp cut-off on householdincome, we use a regression discontinuity design to analyze the effect of the newtuition fees around the full tuition waiver. We nd no evidence of any adverseimpact of the new fees on the drop out rates