Financing higher education by loans and fees: theorizing and researching the private effects of a public policy

Abstract

Whilst research has looked at the effects on students of the introduction of higher education loans, the implications for their families have, for the most part, been ignored. This paper examines some of the possibilities and problems in studying the private effects of this public policy. Difficulties are identified in the use of approaches derived from family studies, research on family-education dynamics, and rational action theory. Not only does some of this work have a strong culturalist emphasis, but where economic matters are included, the significance of, and distinctions between different kinds of family financial assets tend to be ignored. The suggestion is that recent changes in the system of funding higher education in the UK are consistent with some forms of family assets and obligations, but challenge others. It is argued that the promotion of privatization, in education and elsewhere, and of individual investment in human capital, not only fails to acknowledge the importance of collective private intergenerational transfers. It also increasingly depends upon the state and the financial services working in combination.