Education as Economic Investment: Comments on Tuition Fee Policy

Student fees for university programmes in Canada have risen dramatically in recent years. This has been justified by the argument that such increases offer no economic disincentive to students seeking university admission. The present essay comments on that argument and finds several weaknesses in it. Fee increases may still be necessary, but this argument at least does not establish that they are innocuous.     

An ecological fallacy in higher education policy: the use,overuse and misuse of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’

One form of ecological fallacy is found in the dictum that ‘you are where you live’ – otherwise expressed in the idea that you can infer significant information about an individual or their family from the prevailing conditions around their home. One expression of this within higher education in the UK has been the use (and, arguably, overuse and misuse) of ‘low participation neighbourhoods’ (LPNs) over the last 15 years. These are areas that have been defined, from historic official data, as having a lower-than-average propensity to send their young people on to university. These LPNs have increasingly become used within the widening participation and social mobility agendas as a proxy for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to benefit from higher education, but who would not attend without encouragement, support and/or incentives. In this article, we explore the various uses to which LPNs have been put by policy makers, universities and practitioners, including the targeting of outreach activities, the allocation of funding and the monitoring of the social mix within higher education. We use a range of official data to demonstrate that LPNs have a questionable diagnostic value, with more disadvantaged families living outside them than within them, while they contain a higher-than-expected proportion of relatively advantaged families. We also use content analysis of university policy documents to demonstrate that universities have adopted some questionable practices with regard to LPNs, although some of these are now being actively discouraged.     

英国教师职前培养资助政策的演变及其启示

19世纪以来,英国政府对师范生多采用免除学费和住宿费的资助政策。1890年设立的走读师范学院对师范生免收学费。20世纪60年代,受舒尔茨人力资本理论的影响,政府对包括师范生在内的所有大学生采取免费政策。20世纪80年代末以来,英国政府对大学生全面收费政策实施后,政府通过提供助学贷款、生活补助金、助学金等方式来资助师范生。在师范生毕业后试用期满,英国政府根据其任教科目给予合格者奖励,以鼓励优秀大学生从教。这些经验对完善我国免费师范生教育政策,提高免费师范生的培养质量,具有一定的借鉴和参考价值。     

高等学校学生助学金量化评定方法研究与实践

本研究对高等学校助学金量化评定方法进行了一番探索,确定了班级综合测评名次值、班级贫困状况名次值、贫困名次值调整系数三个量化指标参数,并在此基础上归纳总结出了助学金评定的量化公式,给出了评定过程流程图,对高校助学金评定工作有一定的参考价值。