Survey of Student Fees and Tuition Financing at Major Research Universities

CSHE > Research > Issues of Science and Technology Policy > The Convergence of Science and Economic Policies in the US and EU

Student Fees and Tuition Financing Survey

Proceed to Survey – European universities

Proceed to Survey – American universities

John A. Douglass and Ruth Keeling are conducting a survey among a number of leading American and European universities, in order to collect comparative data about fee levels and fee policies at world-class universities. This is the beginning of a wider project which will collate and track longitudinal information about fee trends among leading higher education institutions.

Tuition fees at both the undergraduate and graduate level are becoming a critical source of core funding for public tertiary institutions around the world. This movement in the public sphere to charge fees, and to generate new streams of institutional income, is still relatively new, in both the US and the EU. While many public universities in the US have long charged fees beyond room and board, historically those fees have been minimal and, until recently, constituted only a small proportion of institutional income. The situation is also changing in Europe as well – student fees are increasing seen as a partial solution to universities’ often-chronic underfunding. Increasing student contributions is viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as an important way of diversifying the institutional income base, reducing the reliance on public sources of funds and changing policy priorities. However, little detailed information about fee levels and fee policies is currently available, and the impact, politics, and ultimate destination of this raised fee income are critical policy questions which have yet to be fully scrutinised.

This survey will contribute key data to underpin the analysis of fee structures in a broad sample of US and EU research universities. The information gathered will provide a structured base from which to explore the forces shaping future fee levels, and to trace their possible impact on access and socioeconomic mobility in the US and the "social dimension" goals of the European Bologna Process.

Researchers: John Aubrey Douglass, Ruth Keeling