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This paper summarizes the experiences to date of the new EU countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia—the EU8) in the reform of higher education systems in a period of growing demand; changing patterns of access; rapid expansion and increased participation rates; and an apparent dilution of average quality. The study discusses the growing experience with a variety of financing mechanisms in EU8 countries, drawing on detailed country case studies, and seeks to develop some useful lessons from experience, mindful that each country will continue to develop its own solution based on national priorities.

Student loans program is one of the most controversial phenomena in financing higher education in Ghana, but its importance as a cost sharing mechanism is incontestable. This paper describes the challenge of financing higher education in Ghana. It provides a critique of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Student Loans Scheme, and analyzes the present Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) policy. The paper outlines the new policy framework, critically looks at some implementation problems and provides some practical policy recommendations. The paper questions the mechanisms put in place to ensure the sustainability of the new policy? It concludes that a more efficient student loans scheme should strike the balance between lenders risk and borrowers aversion.

Income gaps in college enrollment, persistence, and graduation raise concerns for those interested in equal opportunity in higher education. We present findings from a randomly assigned scholarship for low-income students at a medium-sized public 4-year university. The program focused solely on the first four semesters of enrollment and tied aid disbursements to modest academic benchmarks and enhanced academic advising. Meaningful decreases in time to degree appear to be driven by students with the lowest academic preparation and family income. Treated students took out approximately 20% less in student loans during the duration of the program. Participants also indicated high satisfaction with the program’s model of enhanced academic advising.

Australia's Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) is an income contingent loan scheme, in which university students pay back part of the costs of their tuition after their post-university income reaches a certain threshold, is an important policy innovation for the financing of higher education. However, its critics claim that HECS increases socioeconomic inequalities in higher education and the HECS debt reduces the ability of young people to make the transitions to adulthood. This paper investigates these claims. There is no evidence that socioeconomic inequalities in higher education in Australia increased after the implementation of HECS in 1989 or the 1997 reforms. The magnitude of the HECS debt was found to have a negative impact on the transition to parenthood, but had no negative impacts on other transitions to adulthood: leaving the parental home, marriage and home ownership. Its effects on parenthood were moderate compared to other influences, such as full-time work in the previous year, marriage and being in a de facto relationship. Furthermore, only a small proportion of young people who attended university have large enough HECS debts for it to affect their fertility decisions. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

This study examines the global trend in shifting university costs from national governments to individual students and families, with a specific focus on the existing cost-sharing model in Australian higher education. The research examines the manner in which the availability of income-contingent loans (through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, or HECS) enters into individual cost assessments and evaluative frameworks during the university exploration and search process of low-income Australian youth, and the resulting lessons that might be applied to other national contexts. Semi-structured interviews with 16 participants addressed a broad range of issues related to the development of educational aspirations, and how beliefs and attitudes about cost influenced participants' understanding and decision-making regarding tertiary enrollment and post-graduate plans. A number of discreet and related themes emerged from analysis of the interviews, including motivations for attending university; pre-university cost considerations; self-assessments of skills, abilities, and personal traits and characteristics; general financial orientation; pre-university experiences and influences; and the role of others including family, peers, teachers and other school staff. The author concludes that the Australian system is worthy of consideration by other nations as a possible mechanism for enhancing access to higher education for individuals who might otherwise not possess the opportunity to participate. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

A fundamental question facing East Asia, especially its low- and middle income economies, is how to sustain or even accelerate the growth of recent decades. From 1950 to 2005, for example, the region's real income per head rose sevenfold. With aging populations, these economies will need to derive an increasing share of growth from productivity improvements rather than from physical factor accumulation to drive growth. The book argues that higher education is failing to deliver skills for growth and research for innovation because of widespread disconnects between higher education institutions and other skill and research users and providers. These disconnects undermine the very functioning of the higher education system. The main assumption of the report is that to deliver labor market skills to higher education graduates, these institutions: (a) must have characteristics that are aligned with what employers and employees need; and (b) must be well connected among themselves and other skills providers. Similarly, to deliver research that can enhance innovation and productivity, higher education institutions need to have a strong role in research provision and have strong links with firms and other research providers.

Given that a significant proportion of the Chilean education system is financed with household resources, we present human capital contracts (HCC) as an option for higher education financing for students facing financial constraints, but who could use their expected future income flows as collateral. We analyze the feasibility of HCC implementation in Chile over a set of college majors. We find that HCC can partially fund any college major in Chile and finance some majors completely, under certain conditions. Among the variables analyzed, those affecting most severely the contract pricing are initial wage level after graduation and graduation rate.

The Commonwealth Government should move to the funding of undergraduate courses for Australian students through the students rather than by way of direct grants to institutions. An independent coordinating body should be re-established to report on the higher education sector, advise the Commonwealth and administer Commonwealth higher education programs. Public funding of undergraduate education and research training should be decentralised through a system of scholarships. Undergraduate scholarship holders should pay charges determined by universities under HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) arrangements. HECS arrangements also should apply to full fee paying undergraduates and PELS (Postgraduate Education Loan Scheme) arrangements to full fee paying research students. Institutional research funding should be on a disciplinary basis, taking account of the volume and quality of outputs. (HRK/text adopted).

It is arguably the case that insufficient income support is restricting the educational choices of mature aged persons with dependants and other financial burdens. Removing financial barriers to further education may improve the opportunities for mature aged persons to re-skill, enabling transitions to specific areas of labour force demand. There is evidence, albeit indirect and suggestive only, of unmet demand for additional financial assistance to facilitate higher education investments of the mature aged. Survey data may be interpreted to indicate that an important policy issue exists, and this is the motivation for our exercise. As a possible solution to unmet demand we analyse, explain and promote the idea that the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) mechanism could be used to supplement significantly the income available for mature aged human capital investment. The major contribution of this work is the illustration of the consequences of a HECS-type policy for mature aged training, in two main regards: the structure of loan repayments for particular hypothetical families; and the implications of our scheme design for government outlays, revenues and implicit taxpayer subsidies. A broad conclusion is that there seems to be a real possibility for the design of a scheme in this area that offers considerable and fair opportunities for additional participation of mature aged trainees with no or little costs to taxpayers.

A survey of community attitudes to income contingent loans was conducted in May 2008. The predominant focus of the survey was to ascertain the level of support, or otherwise, for the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and for the hypothetical application of income contingent loans (ICL) to various other policy areas, including drought relief, child care, research and development, and elite athletes. Public debate over the potential application of income contingent loans to a number of these areas has increased recently. The survey results indicate strong community support for HECS, an ICL for Research and Development, and repayment of government assistance to elite athletes but, by contrast, there is little support for introducing such a scheme for child care, and especially so from those who have received government assistance for child care. Opinion on repayable assistance for farm businesses for drought relief is evenly balanced for and against.