The Critical Economics of HE 3: What is the appropriate HE finance model for sub-Saharan Africa?

07 Apr 2022, CGHE webinar
Moses Oketch, UCL’s Centre for Education and International Development

Higher education finance is a thorny policy issue all over the world. More recently, interest in what is a just and equitable higher education finance model has grown. There is now a wealth of evidence on the merits and challenges of the different models of financing higher education, notably “free” taxpayer funded model, cost-sharing through different types of loan schemes, and direct upfront tuition payment by those students who are demanding and participating in higher education. This webinar will focus on Kenya and use it as case to discuss the application, relevance, and challenges of these models of higher education finance in sub-Saharan Africa context, and whether any of them can meet the challenges of higher education expansion, quality and equity in the region. It draws on human capital theory life-cycle conceptual framework, which includes market earnings, private non-market benefits and social benefits to others, including future generations, and why these are highly important in sub-Saharan Africa. The life-cycle framework approach is important because it underscores the dynamics of the process and the flow of causation whereby investment time and resources come first, and the benefits come later. This is highly relevant and linked to the higher education finance policy that a government chooses to pursue. The conceptual framework draws on the earlier work of McMahon and Oketch and discusses its relevance to higher education finance in sub-Saharan Africa, with Kenya as specific case.