Nicholas Barr argues that higher education systems must transition from state-funded models to a combination of market-driven tuition and government-backed lending. The text presents a tripartite framework for reform: flexible tuition fees to promote institutional competition, income-contingent loans to protect graduates from financial hardship, and targeted subsidies to ensure accessibility for low-income students. Barr uses economic theory to demonstrate why price caps and conventional bank loans create inefficiencies and deter participation among the disadvantaged. He details the specific mechanics of interest rates and repayment thresholds necessary to maintain a sustainable credit system.
This book serves university administrators, policymakers, and economists tasked with restructuring national education budgets. Readers look to this work for a technical blueprint on how to decouple university funding from general taxation without privatizing the sector entirely. The reader gains a functional understanding of how to balance institutional autonomy with social equity. By the end, they possess the analytical tools to evaluate different loan schemes and design fee structures that incentivize high-quality instruction while maintaining broad enrollment across diverse socioeconomic groups.
Outward-looking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Evidence Seeker. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2004
- Language
- EN
