Attitudes towards student support: How positive feedback-effects prevent change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance

Abstract

This article provides a detailed analysis of individual preferences towards public financial aid to students from low-income families. Who favours/opposes such aid? What are the determinants of the respective preferences? I argue that three sets of factors jointly shape these preferences: materialistic self-interests, political attitudes, and the status quo of the higher education subsidy systems by generating positive feedbackeffects. Results of multilevel ordered logit models utilizing the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data for up to 22 countries over two decades indicate that self-interest matters: students strongly favour subsidies as do their parents, while those paying for the spending and those not expecting to benefit oppose such aid. Moreover, political attitudes are important: Supporters of redistribution and of increased public education spending in general, as well as leftwing voters, are much more likely to support students. On the macro-level, the findings suggest that positive feedback-effects exist: in countries with generous subsidy systems, public support for subsidies is higher. This article is the first to systematically analyse preferences towards higher education subsidies across countries and time and demonstrates how positive feedbackeffects increasingly lock-in countries' tuition-subsidy paths, making the systems resistant to (radical) change. As such, it speaks to the literature on the political economy of skill formation, the welfare state, public opinion and the public opinion-policy link.

Party politics and education spending: challenging some common wisdom

“…Theoretically, we incorporated arguments from recent historical institutionalist analyses (Busemeyer 2014;Garritzmann 2014Garritzmann , 2015Iversen and Stephens 2008;Thelen 2004), demonstrating that parties did exercise influence on education systems during the immediate post-war decades, but that their leeway in redesigning the systems has constantly decreased over time. Accordingly, in contrast to the existing quantitative literature, we argued that it is not likely to find effects of the partisan composition of government on public education spending for the period of data availability (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010).…”

“…For example, in countries with considerable tuition fees, it becomes increasingly difficult for governments to switch back to a publicly funded system, because former students do not want to 'pay twice', first for their own and then for others' education (Garritzmann 2014(Garritzmann , 2015. Therefore, education spending becomes increasingly 'locked in' and rather immune to (radical) change over time.…”

“…Moreover, these historical institutionalist studies argued that decisions made in this formative phase generated path dependencies, reinforced by 'positive feedback effects' on the mass-public level (Pierson 1993(Pierson , 2000, which set incentives for political parties to follow along the existing paths and have made radical policy change electorally costly for parties Garritzmann 2015). For example, in countries with considerable tuition fees, it becomes increasingly difficult for governments to switch back to a publicly funded system, because former students do not want to 'pay twice', first for their own and then for others' education (Garritzmann 2014(Garritzmann , 2015.…”

“…From a historical institutionalist perspective, we would not expect to find effects of parties on spending for the recent period in the first place, as education systems -just as welfare states in general (Esping-Andersen 1990) -have been shaped during a much earlier phase, namely the 1950s to the 1980s (Busemeyer 2014;Garritzmann 2014;Iversen and Stephens 2008). Over time, these systems are likely to have generated positive feedback effects (Pierson 1993), which make radical policy-changes increasingly unlikely and path dependencies very likely, thereby limiting governments' leeway in redesigning the education systems (Busemeyer 2014;Garritzmann 2014Garritzmann , 2015. We present some empirical material that indeed points in this direction.…”

Higher education governance in France, Germany, and Italy: Change and variation in the impact of transnational soft governance

“…Yet, every single one of these states has recently abolished tuition fees, in particular as a result of changes in government (with CSU-led Bavaria following suit 10 ). Thus, partisan preferences and a widespread ideological conviction that university studies should be free (Garritzmann, 2015) have pulled Germany somewhat back to the traditionally state-centered Humboldtian funding model.…”