Global Higher Education Rankings 2010

The Global Higher Education Rankings 2010 is the second iteration of our well-known comparison of affordability and accessibility in higher education. Covering seventeen countries in all, the report presents data on a six different indicators of affordability (taking into account in various combinations of costs and subsidies) and four different indictors of accessibility (looking at participation, attainment and equality of access). The overall winner in both categories was Finland; however, a number of countries saw some substantial differences in their affordability and accessibility rankings, suggesting that the two concepts are not necessarily very tightly linked. To read this report please click here. La France est 7e en terme de coûts et seulement 11e en terme d'accès à l'Enseignement supérieur.
Costs
Canada, the Netherlands, the United States and New Zealand each give out aid equal to roughly 40 percent of total costs, followed by England and Wales (36%), Australia (27%), Latvia and France (21% each) and Japan (18 percent). Mexico provides its students with practically no aid at all, with total aid equalling just 1% of total costs.
The most generous system is Germany’s, where students’ families are provided with very generous allowances, to tune of almost $2,500 US per student per year. Canada, (tax credits based in tuition and months of study and France (family allowances) also have reasonably generous tax assistance packages for their students and their families.
Another major tool for improving the affordability of education are student loans, which are used by all fifteen jurisdictions covered by this survey. Two of these countries’ programs (Mexico’s and France’s), however, are little more than nominal, while two others – Germany’s and Latvia’s – are quite restrictive in the amounts they dole out to students. Denmark’s loan system is relatively small due to the generosity of its grant system (see above, table 10). At the other extreme, the United States ($4,677), Finland ($4,281), and Sweden ($4,030) had relatively high amounts of loans, with Japan not far behind.
Costs in New Zealand and Canada also fall substantially towards European levels when using this measure of affordability; both end up being roughly equivalent to France... There are then a group of countries including Denmark, France, Latvia, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, England and Wales with costs ranging from 17% to 40% of median income.
The Netherlands and France form the next group of countries, somewhat more expensive than the first group of five but still noticeably less expensive than the cluster of Latvia, Canada and New Zealand which follows.
Accessibility of higher education Rankings
This section looks at the data on the accessibility of higher education in various countries around the world. Unfortunately, data on accessibility is far less open to comparison than is data on affordability. Simply put, different countries care about different aspects of accessibility to different degrees, and hence collect very different statistics about their own systems. This renders detailed comparisons very difficult and limits our ability to make useful comparisons. As such, the accessibility rankings have used indicators, which are, albeit rough, widely available.
Finland has the highest participation rate among the countries in this study with 41.3 percent of its 22-25 year-olds participating in higher education. Portugal (40.6%), France and England and Wales (34%), Norway (33%) and France (33%) are next, meaning that the top five countries in terms of participation are all European. Despite being in ninth, the United States is however, only marginally behind at 30%.
Next come a group of continental European countries – Sweden, France and Germany. They all have relatively mature systems of higher education, but tend to have very weak performance both in terms of participation and in terms of EEI. In effect, they all have smaller, more elite systems of higher education, and their scores reflect that.
Conclusion
The preceding pages have examined in some detail the issues of accessibility and affordability in comparative perspective. But what, in sum, does all this data and these rankings really tell us?
First of all, it tells us that Norway, the Netherlands and above all Finland are models for the international community when it comes to accessibility and affordability. All have high rates of access, high attainment rates, extensive programs of both loans and grants, and student bodies that are reasonably reflective of broader society. These countries are the undisputed success stories of this survey.
Second, the data and rankings suggest quite strongly that the links between accessibility and affordability are not as straightforward as some policymakers and analysts believe. Sweden and Germany, for instance, both of which do very well on the affordability scores, do not do especially well on any of the key measures of accessibility. On the other hand, the United States, which fare poorly on most affordability measures, does reasonably well in terms of accessibility. Finland, Norway and the Netherlands, have high scores across both the affordability and accessibility rankings.
Third, the data and rankings indicate that while continental European countries are generally more affordable than their North American and Australasian counterparts, the gap is less than is sometimes imagined. New Zealand and Canada, for instance, both of which have substantial tuition fees, are on some measures cheaper than countries like France, which do not have tuition fees at all.
Third, the data and rankings indicate that while continental European countries are generally more affordable than their North American and Australasian counterparts, the gap is less than is sometimes imagined. New Zealand and Canada, for instance, both of which have substantial tuition fees, are on some measures cheaper than countries like France, which do not have tuition fees at all.
Fourth, we have been able to show that in some countries – notably Mexico, Japan and the United States which have substantial private sectors – there are some substantial differences between “average costs” and “minimum available costs” and we have been able to make comparisons on the basis of both.
None of these findings are, of course, conclusive. There is much work still to be done in terms of fine-tuning the measurements and definitions of affordability and accessibility. Our affordability indicators, could, for instance be improved if we could more accurately unpack the total, net-and out-of-pocket costs facing students from different income groups, which would allow us to avoid “average cost” measures and allow us to focus more closely on the plight of the disadvantaged in each country. We are still not able to do this conclusively because very few countries publish sufficiently detailed data about the beneficiaries of their aid programs.
We also face a continuing difficulty in looking at accessibility in a comparative context. Participation, attainment and gender equity data is widely available across countries, but good data on the social origin of students in most countries is extremely limited, even at the level of relatively simple indicators such as the EEI. Even in those countries where EEI data is available, our rankings could be improved if data could be obtained not just for higher education as a whole, but also for specific advanced types of graduate and professional education, so that stratification differences between types of higher education institutions could also be examined.
Still, we believe that even in the absence of improved data, the second iteration of our rankings project can serve a significant purpose in bringing rigour to international comparative discussions on access and affordability, and to begin an international discussion on higher education by posing the questions of what makes higher education truly “affordable” and “accessible.” As public finances are becoming increasingly stretched due to changing demography and the lingering effects of the 2008 financial crisis, the future of millions of young people around the world hinges upon researchers and policy makers getting the answers to these questions right.
Keeping it Interesting
Keeping it Interesting, the first in HESA’s “Intelligence Briefs” series, uses Higher Education Strategy Associates’ student research panel to examine the elements of good and bad classroom experiences. The data point unequivocally to the conclusion that for most students, the key variable in making a great educational experience was the subject matter of the class and quality of the teaching. Though not completely irrelevant, the use of technology, quality of other students, class size, and quality of teaching assistants were considerably less important than the main factors. To read this report please click here.