Hannover (GER), March 2008 -In the past, reports have indicated that social and financial barriers to participation in higher education exist. The project "Public / private funding of higher education: a social balance", co-funded by the European Commission under the Socrates programme, explored such barriers by examining various approaches to sharing the teaching-related costs for higher education between the state and households.
It also looked into the potential impact of these cost-sharing approaches on participation in higher education.
The aim of the project was to provide reliable data and information on the real and effective distribution of the teaching-related costs of higher education. The shares of public and private costs were calculated for students of different socio-economic origin reflecting social disparity and social exclusion.
The result was a twofold achievement. On the one hand, a comparison between countries on macroeconomic level explored the sharing of the costs of higher education provision between the state and households. On the other hand, the study focused on and compared cost sharing at the microeconomic level that possibly influenced balances of cost sharing based on a student's socio-economic background, even within one country.
The link between establishing the real and full monetary value of all direct and indirect public and private contributions in cash and in kind, and relating this cost-sharing ratio to a student's socio-economic background - thus allowing for considerations of the impact on participation - were new and unique in this project.
These analyses were carried out for six countries from all corners of Europe representing different approaches of support: the Czech Republic, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain.
On the whole, it became evident that the differences among both countries and socio-economic status (SES) groups within countries are considerable. In those countries where public support to students and their parents does little to compensate for differences in SES, one might ask if there shouldn't be more ways of widening access and supporting talented-but-underprivileged students.
However, as the country-specific cost-sharing models are based upon different underlying concepts of students' dependence on their parents, and since these may be linked to legal concepts of alimony rights, etc., it may not be easy to harmonize this situation across Europe. All the same, the various approaches should be optimised with regard to social equity and effectiveness.
This explorative study has produced internationally comparable data on the real public and private shares in the teaching-related cost of higher education. Furthermore, the template on which the analysis was based can be applied to a wider group of countries.
All stakeholders dealing with higher education participation, access, and equity will benefit from this type of objective data, whether they act on the supranational, national, or institutional level. The project data is relevant for all these groups.
A discussion of strategies aimed at increasing participation of socio-economically disadvantaged groups in higher education in view of the different cost-sharing scenarios that was based on the project's results took place during an international conference in Berlin in February 2008.
