Abstract
This chapter, which is written from a philosophy of education perspective, presents a short critical analysis of some crucial answers to the question of whether the introduction of tuition fees is a social injustice as well as a violation of international law and human rights. The reasons for the introduction of tuition fees – as proposed in Slovenia by the Reform Committee in 2005, as well as in other countries – need to be understood in a wider context within which their implementation was proposed: neoliberalism. Tuition fees, especially those charged to full-time students in public undergraduate education, are, as Pavel Zgaga also argues in some of his works, closely connected with the neoliberal transformation of higher education. On the one hand, tuition-fees are one of the main means to introduce market mechanisms into higher education, and on the other hand, they reflect neoliberal ideas of education as a private good and students as customers who are responsible for their choices. This might help to explain why governments are trying to transfer at least a part of the cost of higher education from the state to students.
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Notes
- 1.
But the purpose of this chapter is not to treat tuition fees in higher education as a factual situation in individual countries (who pays tuition fees, at what level, at what level of study, and so on). This has already been done for European countries in a transparent way (Eurydice, 2020). The purpose of this text is to treat tuition fees as a normative issue (whether tuition fees should be paid or not) and to critically analyse the arguments for and against tuition fees.
- 2.
Tuition fees (first- and second-cycle) are paid by only three categories of students: (1) those full-time students who “exceeding the regular length of studies by more than one year or those enrolled in a programme situated at a level they have already attained”; (2) international students who are not from the EU and those who are not “citizens of countries outside EU that have signed bilateral or multilateral agreements on educational cooperation with Slovenia”, (3) those who take first- and second-cycle programmes “on a part-time basis”, that is, “evening and weekend courses” (Eurydice, 2020, p. 76).
- 3.
Similar intentions regarding the introduction of tuition fees have been characteristic of many “transition countries” (Central, East and South East European countries) since 1990. In these countries “state budgets were decreasing very fast and public universities entered serious troubles; they started to charge student fees what was also unimaginable before” (Zgaga, 2009). The majority of Western Balkan countries, for instance, introduced tuition-fees for full-time undergraduate students in public higher education institutions. Slovenia is an exception in this respect: “no tuition fees are charged for full-time undergraduate students and there is a small share of fee-paying part-time students in public institutions”. Moreover, even “students enrolled in concessionary programs in private institutions also do not pay any tuition” (Klemenčič & Zgaga, 2014, p. 47).
- 4.
Such an interpretation presupposes a competition for tuition-free admission among students. In Slovenia, this competition was more hidden than in other countries of the former Yugoslavia, where, as Zgaga showed, “public higher education follows a dual tuition system that admits some students tuition-free based on state quotas. The others who do not qualify for the competitive tuition-free admissions can enroll in the same program and sit together in classrooms by paying a tuition fee” (Zgaga, 2013). In Slovenia, many of those who could not enroll as full-time students (because they had worse results in terms of enrollment conditions than those who enrolled), enrolled as part-time students. Today, there is no longer formally part-time student status, but despite this it is still possible to “take first- and second-cycle programmes “on a part-time basis”, that is, “evening and weekend courses” for which tuition fees must be paid (Eurydice, 2020, p. 76).
- 5.
For Rawls, a reward system based on an individual’s natural talents and efforts is morally unjustifiable. Such a reward system is unjust or unfair to him because it is based on the distribution of natural talents and even efforts (which give some more and others less) which are not the result of personal decisions but only a matter of luck, as they are genetic or environmental factors over which we ourselves had no influence. In other words, if we look at it from a moral point of view, then, according to Rawls, we do not deserve to be rewarded for characteristics that are a matter of coincidence. As individuals, we do not deserve the talents that fate has given us, nor the benefits that flow from them (Rawls, 1971). From this, it could be concluded that full-time students do not deserve free study because their status is the result of achievements that are the result of their greater talent, willingness to learn, or effort that they did not deserve. But such a conclusion can be challenged with Nozick’s well-known argument that “the foundations underlying desert need not themselves be deserved” (Nozick, 1974, p. 225) For, even if an individual does not deserve the talents and abilities he has, he still has them, and he also has a greater right to the benefits that flow from them than anyone else. Talent and ability cannot be separated from the person who has them. For Nozick, only the way the individual came to benefit is important. If an individual has come to them in an honest way, he also deserves them. The benefits that come from an individual’s talent and ability, Nozick says, must also belong to him (ibid., pp. 224–227). If we accept this interpretation, full-time students deserve free study, even if they do not deserve their greater talent and willingness to learn, which condition their better learning outcomes and, consequently, give them an advantage when enrolling in full-time study for which no tuition fee is required.
- 6.
In light of the arguments put forward by proponents of introducing tuition fees for full-time students, it can be concluded that in their opinion the State should introduce tuition fees because of two main reasons. Firstly, because due to the large increase in the number of students, it can no longer fully fund free study and as a result the quality of study or enrolment suffers; and secondly, because it should not even be fully funded, as tuition fees are an important means of raising the quality and efficiency of study, of shortening studies, of abolishing the privilege of full-time students compared to part-time ones (who have always had to pay for their studies), to ensure greater equity in the financing of higher education, and so on (Kodelja, 2006, pp. 147–154).
- 7.
For, “without fees, it would not be possible to expand the private university sector: why would anyone pay to attend a private university if the best university education was already free?” (Choat, 2017, p. 3).
- 8.
Moreover, the example of higher education in England shows that “competition between institutions has intensified competition within institutions – between faculties and departments fighting for students and resources, and between individual staff members desperate to keep their jobs” (Choat, 2017, p. 4).
- 9.
The introduction of fees in Austria in 2001/02 “has been linked to an average decline of 20% in student enrolment” (Biffl et al., 2002, p. 451).
- 10.
Barr says that students from low-income families do not suffer only from financial poverty but also from information poverty. And “students who are badly informed about the costs and benefits of higher education will be reluctant to borrow” (Barr, 2005).
- 11.
“In order for a State party to be able to attribute its failure to meet at least its minimum core obligations to a lack of available resources it must demonstrate that every effort has been made to use all resources that are at its disposition in an effort to satisfy, as a matter of priority, those minimum obligations” (CESCR, 1990, Art. 2, par.1, point 10).
- 12.
Although “the full realization of the relevant rights may be achieved progressively, steps towards that goal must be taken within a reasonably short time after the Covenant’s entry into force for the States concerned. Such steps should be deliberate, concrete and targeted as clearly as possible towards meeting the obligations recognized in the Covenant” (ibid., point 2).
- 13.
The same criticism can be made, according to Van Bauren, Di Otto and Salvaris, also of Australia (Otto et al., 2004).
- 14.
Aristotle introduces this distinction by means of an obvious paradox: equity is for him neither the same as justice nor different from it (Aristotle, V. 1137b). Aristotle’s solution for this paradox is to define equity as a kind of justice. The difference, therefore, is not between justice and something else that is not justice, but rather between different kinds of justice. On the one hand, justice and equity are both good and as such not opposed to one another; on the other hand, equitable is better than the just. However, this does not mean that equity is better than justice in its totality – in which equity is included as one of its parts – but rather that it is better than a certain kind of justice, that is, legal justice (the just is what is prescribed by law). This is the reason why equity is defined in relation to it as a correction or “rectification of legal justice” (ibid., 1137b 12–13.). But the question is: why does legal justice need correction? The reason, says Aristotle, is that while all “law is universal, it is not possible to deal with some situations by means of pronouncements that are both universal and just. The judge’s equity will mitigate the imperfection of the law, which holds for usual cases but not for those that deviate from the norm. He will be just in taking the decision that the legislator would have taken if he had been present and had known the case in question” (ibid., 137b 18–24). Therefore, the equitable is just and better than legal justice, that is, better than the error that arises from the absoluteness of the statement. And precisely this is the essence of the equitable: a correction of law when it is defective because of its universality (ibid., 1137b 24–28).
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Kodelja, Z. (2022). Tuition Fees and University Reforms. In: Klemenčič, M. (eds) From Actors to Reforms in European Higher Education. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 58. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_15
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