Program for Research On Private Higher Education

The United Kingdom's new Higher and Further Education Minister has indicated that alongside the introduction of top-up fees across the UK in 2006, students at private institutions will become eligible for the same level of state financial support as their peers in public institutions. Calling it the beginning of a voucher system, the small cadre of existing private providers champions the move. They claim that private institutions serve a cost-saving public purpose, and that the move creates the opportunity for leading public universities to consider becoming privates, raising tuition rates, and potentially forming a British "Ivy-League."

UK government financial support to students attending private institutions is a significant policy change. At the outset it would affect only a small fraction of UK students as the private sector remains small. It could, however, entice some of the prestigious Russell Group institutions (twenty or so leading research universities in the UK) to become private. Any emergence of elite private universities would be remarkable, considering their rarity outside the US. These British institutions could charge higher fees than at present, since students would get some offsetting government money. The "voucher" model is a key feature of US higher education, bringing major public finance to private higher education. In recent years there has been talk about a small number of "elite" US public universities "going fully private" for similar reasons: less government oversight and more flexibility to set tuition rates. That a few public universities in several countries have or are considering related privatizing shifts raises interesting questions about changing public/private dynamics.

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Program for Research on Private Higher Education (Financed by the FORD FOUNDATION, complemented by the University at Albany, SUNY) This website is best viewed by IE Browser 5.0 or above and Mozilla Foxfire. Last update April 20, 2011. All rights are reserved. Please contact PROPHE Webmaster for any question or suggestion.


	Director: Daniel C. Levy