As more individuals around the world pursue college degrees and the costs of state-supported education escalates, policy makers are left with the dilemma of determining how to cut costs without sacrificing access to education.
An international conference in Africa on higher-education financing, made possible by a $130,000 grant to UB's Graduate School of Education from the Ford Foundation, will attempt to shed light on this growing predicament.
The conference, which will be held March 24-28 in Dar es Salaam, is a collaborative effort between UB and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
"In most African nations a huge demand for higher education is greatly outpacing the capacity of the tax systems to continue providing this higher education free of charge. There simply isn't the money," stated UB professor of higher and comparative education Dr. Bruce Johnstone in a press release.
The Ford funds are in addition to a January 2000 grant by the foundation to support the International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project, a three-year effort headed by Johnstone.
"We're very pleased the Ford Foundation has chosen to extend its already generous support and commitment to the university, which will further the cause of affordable higher education around the world," stated Mary Gresham, dean of the Graduate School of Education, in a press release.
Johnstone's project examines trends in higher education costs and the shifting financial burden from governments and taxpayers to parents and students. The goal of the project is to compile an international database on the costs of higher education, including tuition, student-aid and loan packages. In particular, the study focuses on the diversification of revenue sources through cost sharing.
Cost sharing, in terms of higher education, consists of splitting the expense of higher education between the provider and the consumer or student. Ideally, cost sharing will encourage a more tuition-dependant private sector by examining policies for maintaining and expanding higher education accessibility.
Many low-income countries in Africa are beginning to implement the idea of cost sharing, due to the fact that additional revenues are not completely covered by the taxpayer and the government.
"Cost sharing is supported by the economic concept of equity and efficiency, as well as by the appropriate inability of public revenues in almost all countries to keep up with burgeoning enrollments and rising per-student costs," said Johnstone.
More specifically, cost sharing can take the form of introducing tuition where it did not previously exist or raising tuition to compensate for diminishing taxpayer or government support. An additional form of cost sharing can be charging a fee for room and board or books.
This partial shift is visible throughout the world in mounting tuition fees, rising costs of student living, the phasing out of grants in the United Kingdom and the introduction of tuition in China and other nations that previously embodied Marxist-Socialist ideologies.
The two biggest arguments against cost sharing are political and technical or administrative. Politically, some feel higher education should be run by the government and financially supported by citizens - in the same way, for example, that elementary education is regulated strictly by government policy and funded by taxpayer dollars.
Johnstone believes the problem with this perspective is that there is not sufficient public revenue to meet all the pressing claims on government and that it is appropriate for parents and students to share the costs of higher education.
The technical or administrative controversy arises from the fact that cost sharing necessitates means-testing, or targeting on the neediest families and some type of student loan program, both of which are extremely difficult to employ successfully in developing, low-income nations.
The "invitation only" conference only includes countries that have made a commitment to some form of higher education revenue diversification by cost sharing.
The countries initially invited included Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Program participants from each country include university leaders, government officials responsible for advising on higher education, agencies directly involved in disbursement of financial assistance and student loans, researchers and scholars of higher education finance, international and African higher education associations and students.
Johnstone stressed that the purpose of the conference is to share ideas and information, not to come to concrete conclusions. The conference will attempt to convey that "here is what some countries have tried and here are some of the successes and failures," said he said, not "here is what you should do."
