Hubert Ertl and Claire Dupuy (eds),Students,markets and social justice: Higher education fee and student support policies in Western Europe and beyond

Part of the Oxford Studies in Comparative Education series, the edited volume Students, Markets and Social Justice offers a comprehensive overview of higher education financing systems in various national contexts. From an English perspective, it is a timely contribution, with the recent budget announcement to replace grants with loans in the student financial support system from 2016–2017.

The volume aims not only to provide a comparative perspective of higher education financing reforms, but also to analyse various policy rationales leading to their development and associated outcomes. As the editors, Hubert Ertl and Claire Dupuy, state in the introductory chapter, this intends to facilitate the exploration of the varied nature of neo-liberal trends, which they clarify refers to both marketisation and social justice concerns in higher education. Each chapter thus intends to disentangle political and economic motivations for tuition fee implementation and student financial support, and consider the role of social justice within educational markets in Western Europe, as well as in China, Canada and the USA.

The contributions to this volume are far-reaching and hence provide a suitable introduction to higher education financing systems across Western Europe and beyond. In a globalised higher education system, an understanding and awareness of comparative systems of funding, the policy rationales that led to their development, and their subsequent economic and social justice impacts is valuable. It is particularly interesting to observe how the pressure on public funds – and which funding resources are utilised to attempt to achieve fair access – is dealt with in a broad variety of international contexts. In doing this, the book is effective in broadening the reader’s knowledge of the wealth of political and economic conditions leading to the construction of different higher education financial systems. For this reason, the volume compels one to question the policies of one’s own national higher education financing system and the political positions taken towards social justice that influence these.

Students, Markets and Social Justice is effective in highlighting a variety of political responses to accommodate rising student numbers in times of economic crisis, and the implementation of various forms of student financial support that hope to build more equitable higher education systems. Some contributions challenge the inexorable adoption of a fee-paying solution, however. The chapter from Hüther and Krücken details the attempt to introduce tuition fees across seven federal states in Germany and their subsequent retraction. This transpired as tuition fees were unable to be ‘legitimised’ amid unfavourable media and public perceptions of them. In order for tuition fees to be maintained, Hüther and Krücken explain that particular conditions would be required to be met:

Tuition fees are only considered legitimate by the media and large sections of the population if the revenue increases overall university funding, if the additional income is only used to improve the quality of education, and, simultaneously, effective measures to prevent increased social selectivity are established. (94)

However, tuition fees were not regarded as significant to the financing of higher education. On their abolishment, the state partially replaced the lost revenue, which reinforced the notion that tuition fees were not ‘an absolute necessity’ (96). It was also unclear if teaching standards had been improved, due to difficulties associated with measuring these. Furthermore, the media reported instances of higher education institutions saving funds derived from tuition fees and using these for construction and administration purposes, which was not viewed as contributing to the improvement of teaching standards. Finally, the federal structure in Germany influenced this considerably too; not all states had introduced tuition fees, which, again, made their necessity questionable. These factors were played out against a moving political backdrop, in which the federal states hold their elections at different times, meaning that there is ‘a permanent debate about tuition fees, which constantly challenges their legitimacy’ (100). The authors’ commentary on how tuition fees failed to be legitimised in Germany is enlightening, especially from the perspective of other national contexts where tuition fees have been a long-standing feature of the higher education landscape.

As a result of such contributions that challenge the funding status quo, the volume provokes some fundamental questions about the higher education sector, such as whether it should be regarded as a public or private good. The chapter discussing the Chinese context from Yu and Jin is particularly good at addressing this, by detailing the relatively recent shift from higher education being regarded as a public benefit before the economy began to flourish. This led to increasing student numbers, but also increasing inequalities, where the higher education market is incredibly differentiated in terms of costs. Carasso’s chapter addresses this in the English context by discussing the shift to a quasi-market as a result of the introduction of tuition fees and their subsequent increases. Such chapters serve as an insightful comparison with those systems – such as in France and Germany – that have maintained the perception of higher education as a public good, resulting in low fees in France (where only registration fees are required to be paid) and free higher education in Germany.

The contributions also demonstrate the problematic nature of different systems of financial student support, which can work against the development of a socially equitable higher education system. In discussing the US context, Nahai provides a thorough account of student financial aid, which she concludes is ‘not enough’, as the system has ‘failed to adequately address the growing gap between available grant aid and unprecedented tuition fee levels’ (154). The criteria on which student support is distributed, as well as the level of support offered, present further challenges, even in systems implementing negligible tuition fee levels. Charles’s chapter documenting the low fee/low aid model in France notes the difficulties inherent within this, such as the way in which those over the age of 28 are not eligible for financial support, leading to an under-representation of mature students. Moreover, the low level of support offered impacts negatively on social equity, with students widely reporting financial difficulties during their studies. In the Dutch context, Vossensteyn highlights the issues caused by policymakers attempting to predict future student numbers, which has resulted in an unsustainable student support scheme.

The detail of the contributions in this volume is impressive and sufficiently meets its intended aims. Yet it is perhaps too ambitious in its attempts to cover eight distinct national contexts whilst maintaining constant attention to the objectives set out in the introductory chapter. Whilst the majority of the chapters do make reference to policy rationales, higher education financing, student support, markets and social justice, the balance is not consistent. The opening contribution by Carasso, for example, sets the tone successfully by providing a detailed account of the policy development and rationales motivating changes to higher education financing, and effectively integrates discussions of social justice. On the other hand, the following chapter from Teixeira and colleagues, which explores the factors that enable higher education institutions to gain increased revenues through tuition fees in Portugal, provides limited attention to social justice; this only receives a small mention in the chapter’s concluding comments. This, I feel, temporarily disrupts the fluidity in addressing the volume’s aims. My research interest – social justice in higher education – provokes me to feel that the volume would certainly satisfy readers who are predominantly interested in funding policy rationales and outcomes, rather than those who would prefer social justice issues to be at the forefront.

Due to the far-reaching and detailed content of the volume, a concluding chapter from the editors would have provided a useful addition to draw the various threads together and further strengthen its key arguments for the reader. This could have worked to reiterate the intentions outlined in the introduction and provide an opportunity to discuss questions that the volume raises with regard to effective and sustainable higher education funding, as well as its relationship to social justice. Nonetheless, the extensive content included here makes the volume relevant for those from a number of different fields, including politics, education and economics.

Students, Markets and Social Justice offers a much-needed contribution to the field for higher education practitioners, researchers and postgraduate students during a time when frequent changes to higher education financing are taking place globally. It enables the reader to gain a comparative understanding of the rationales influencing the development of higher education financing systems and the provision of student support, and gives some insight into how these are increasingly difficult to balance with the achievement of a socially just system.