The impact of progressive tuition fees on the drop-out from higher education: a case study

Abstract

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During recent years, and under the pressure of increasing public deficits, several countries have decided to increases university fees to compensate the reduction in teaching subsidies financed by taxpayers. Perhaps the best-known case is the UK. In this paper we analyze a similar policy adopted in Catalonia. Tuition fees increased 66 per cent in the academic year 2012-13 to compensate the reduction of the public subsidy to finance the teaching activities of Catalan universities. Interestingly, the increase in fees was progressive meaning that the fee was a function of the income of the family. We analyze the distributional impact of this policy change. We show that this progressive tuition fee does not have as an effect a differential impact on the dropping out rate of students with different socioeconomic status.