低收费政策能改善教育公平和社会福利吗?--兼论高等教育不同收费政策的效应

本文探讨不同收费政策对教育公平和社会福利的影响。一直以来,理论界认为提高缴费标准,会损害教育公平和社会福利。本文运用统计原理,分析了高等教育缴费标准与失学概率间的理论关系,并指出低收费政策和高收费政策,对于改善教育公平的比较效应,是随不同情况而改变的。进一步的实证分析表明,在当前贫富悬殊较为严重的情况下,低收费政策并不能明显改善低收入阶层的教育机会和社会福利,相反,高收费高资助政策的效应要更加显著。

Can Low-Tuition Policy Improve Education Fairness and Social Welfare?

This is a comparative study of the effects of different tuition policies on education fairness and social welfare.A traditional,theoretical view supposes that raising tuition will contradict the above aims.The article first discusses the theoretical relationships between higher education tuition and dropout probability.It concludes that depending on the circumstances,the same tuition level may bring different effects on educational fairness.The article then presents an empirical analysis: when there is significant income gaps,low-tuition policy alone can not effectively improve educational access and social welfare for the disadvantaged groups;on the contrary,high-tuition policy may have better effectiveness and efficiency.It is hoped that these findings may inform policy-making of higher education pricing in China.