COST-SHARING POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

There has been a worldwide tendency to implement Higher Education (HE) funding policies based upon cost-sharing (Johnstone, 1986, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007; Woodhall, 2002, 2003; Vossensteyn, 2002, 2005; Ziderman and Albrecht, 1995). Such trend has taken many forms: introduction or increase of the tuition fees value; introduction of loans programs, or change of social support from study grants to loans; and incentive and support to the outcome and development of private education. Due to the European Higher Education diversity we must perspective a comparative analysis by enhancing the dominant situation in several European countries. In this article we will discuss the relationship of tuition fees policies to the HE accessibility and affordability: • What are the HE funding policies followed over the last two decades? • What results do are the policies of tuition fee have on HE accessibility? In summary, we will demonstrate that in most European countries cost-sharing policies have been implemented, with the adoption of tuition fees with diversified impacts on Higher Education accessibility and affordability. Loans and grants could also be analysed, but we will focus our attention only on the tuition fees policy.