The impact of higher education finance in the UK
Year: 2009
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The subject of how to finance Higher Education (HE) has been on the agenda of \nsuccessive UK governments since the 1960s. The UK has moved from a situation \nwhere the taxpayer footed the entire bill for HE, to a system where students \nthemselves must contribute part of the cost of their education. This so-called \n`cost-sharing' has always been a subject of controversy, with fears that it would \nlower participation, particularly among poorer students. \nThis thesis is a quantitative analysis of the UK's system of HE finance (defined \nhere as maintenance grants and upfront fees) and its impact on individual \nuniversity participation decisions and Higher Education Institution funding levels. \nThe thesis comprises two main strands. \nThe first is an econometric analysis of the causal relationship between HE finance \nand university participation. I use individual-level Labour Force Survey data over \nthe period of 1992-2005, during which many major changes in HE finance policy \ntook place, to estimate the impact of upfront fees and maintenance grants on \nindividual participation decisions. I use a variety of econometric techniques \nexploiting variation in policy by income-group, over time, and by UK constituent \ncountry arising from Scottish devolution. I find a positive impact of maintenance \ngrants on participation, and a negative impact of up-front fees. \nIn the second strand of the thesis, I draw on Scotland as a comparison group with \nthe rest of the UK. I use HESA data on university funding and volumes of \nstudents, and Higher Education Funding Council of England / Scottish Funding \nCouncil funding formulae to analyze the impact of tuition fees in terms of relative \nfunding per FTE in Scottish and English universities. I find English universities to \nhave caught up with Scotland in terms of funding per head as a result of the \nincreased income from fees.
Source: IOE EPrints
Author: Gill Wyness
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W385689732