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Economist Debates: The cost of higher education Opening statements Opening statements were originally published on October 29th 2008. They can be viewed online at http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/232 The moderator Helen Joyce Education Correspondent, The Economist Helen Joyce is Education Correspondent for The Economist. As well as covering education, she also covers some statistical, social and health-related issues, stories relating to children and family life, and British science. Previous jobs include editor of Plus, an online magazine about maths published by the University of Cambridge, and founding editor for the Royal Statistical Society's quarterly magazine, Significance. 6
Economist Debates: The cost of higher education The moderator’s opening statement October 29th 2008 Governments all round the world want more young people to go to university. They want growth, and are convinced that having more graduates will create it; they want social justice and hope that if lots and lots of young people go on to higher education, at some point universities will run out of middleclass students and start educating poorer youngsters who will then become upwardly mobile. But how to fund ever-increasing numbers of students? For Alison Wolf, the author of "Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth", the prime beneficiaries of higher education are those who do it, and therefore the answer is simple: they should pay. She is keen on arrangements to ensure students are not put off by poverty or the fear of debt, but these are arguments, she says, for carefully designed student loan schemes, not for the taxpayer picking up the tab. Our other participant, Anders Flodström, is head of Sweden’s National Agency for Higher Education. For him, education at every level is a joint endeavour between the citizens of a state. Higher education is certainly expensive, but it is part of a country’s infrastructure, and common payment for infrastructure is one of the things that lie behind the Nordic dream of welfare for all and a classless society. 7
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