Abstract
Education being a public good calls for higher public investment. In India, there is a growing trend towards private expenditure on education. The present article examines the trends of private expenditure on education based on the NSSO-Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) and Social Consumption on Education (SC-E) survey estimates for the period 1986–1987 to 2017–2018. The analysis reveals the rising share of private expenditure on education in GDP and total household consumption expenditure (HCE) indicating its faster growth over GDP and/or HCE. There is a positive association between income level and per capita private expenditure on education. In the case of bottom economic strata, per capita private expenditure on education and its share in their total HCE is rising faster. The ratio of per capita private expenditure on education of the top 10% to the bottom 10% is high but decreasing over time, indicating lower economic strata are spending a higher proportion of their income on education vis-à-vis upper economic strata.
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