Equity Quality And Cost In Higher Education

The demand for higher education worldwide is booming. Governments want well-educated citizens and knowledge workers but are scrambling for funds. The capacity of the public sector to provide increased and equitable access to higher education is seriously challenged. What are the on-the-ground realities of developing financial resources and policies to meet the twin goals of equity and access without jeopardizing quality? This volume provides in-depth reports from selected countries and sub-regions: Morocco, Korea, England, Uganda, Poland, Oman, East and southern Africa, Southeast Asia, Brazil, and Egypt. Each chapter is written by a seasoned educator participating in the Fulbright New Century Scholar program for 2007-2008. Given the near-universal constraints of declining resources but increasing enrollments, the authors identify common trends such as the public/private divide, the privatization of the public sector, and diversification of funding. To address these issues, the chapters examine a surprising variety of policy instruments such as means testing, targeted subsidies, cost sharing, institutional aid, student bursaries, and tax exemptions.

Across the world, higher education is witnessing exponential growth in both student participation and types of educational providers. One key phenomenon of this growth is an increase in student diversity: governments are widening access to higher education for students from traditionally underrepresented groups. However, this raises questions about whether this rapid growth may in face compromise academic quality. This book presents case studies of how higher education institutions in diverse countries are maintaining academic excellence while increasing the access and participation of students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Including case studies spanning four continents, the authors and editors examine whether increasing widening participation positively impacts upon academic quality. This volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of global higher education, representation and participation in education, and quality in higher education.

College cost per student has been on the rise at a pace that matches - or exceeds - healthcare costs. Unlike healthcare, though, teaching quality has declined, and rapidly rising costs and declining quality are not trends easily forgiven by society. The College Cost Disease addresses these problems, providing a behavioral framework for the chronic cost/quality consequences with which higher education is fraught. Providing many compelling insights into the issues plaguing higher education, Robert Martin expounds upon H. R. Bowen's revenue theory of cost by detailing experience good theory, the principal/agent problem, and non-profit status. Reputation competition dominates higher education. Students and their parents, and public opinion in general, associate higher tuition with higher quality and greater accolades; price is used as a proxy for quality only when consumers are uncertain about quality prior to purchase. Higher education services are the most complex types of ?experience goods'; a service whose quality can only be determined after a purchase has been made. Applying formal economic theory to higher education, Robert Martin examines how and why attempts to control costs are controversial and the damaging effects these controversies have on institutions' reputations. Arguing that the college access problem cannot be solved until colleges and universities find a way to control their costs, this book brings to the fore the leading ideas that will bring about much-needed budgetary reform in higher education.

Identifies five critical issues with which higher education institutions in the developing world must grapple as they respond to changing external contexts, offers examples of institutional responses to these issues, and considers these within a systems perspective which recognizes that each response impacts how institutions handle other critical issues. Half of the students enrolled in higher education worldwide live in developing countries. Yet, in many developing countries, government and education leaders express serious concerns about the ability of their colleges and universities to effectively respond to the pressures posed by changing demographics, new communication technologies, shifts in national political environments, and the increasing interconnectedness of national economies. This book identifies five critical issues with which higher education institutions in the developing world must grapple as they respond to these changing contexts: seeking a new balance in government-university relationships; coping with autonomy; managing expansion while preserving equity, raising quality, and controlling costs; addressing new pressures for accountability; and supporting academic staff in new roles. These papers offer examples of institutional responses and consider these within a systems perspective that recognizes that each response has a rippling effect impacting institutions' responses to other critical issues. Only as government and education leaders understand the interwoven nature of the problems now facing colleges and universities and the interconnections among the intended solutions they seek to implement can they offer effective leadership that strengthens the quality and improves the relevance of higher education in their countries.

The Springer International Handbook of Educational Development in Asia Pacific breaks new ground with a comprehensive, fine-grained and diverse perspective on research and education development throughout the Asia Pacific region. In 13 sections and 127 chapters, the Handbook delves into a wide spectrum of contemporary topics including educational equity and quality, language education, learning and human development, workplace learning, teacher education and professionalization, higher education organisations, citizenship and moral education, and high performing education systems. The Handbook is grounded in specific Asia Pacific contexts and scholarly traditions, using unique country-specific narratives, for example, Vietnam and Melanesia, and socio-cultural investigations through lenses such as language identity or colonisation, while offering parallel academic discourse and analyses framed by broader policy commentary from around the world.