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Debt: the reality of student life
Author(s) -
McCarthy Peter,
Humphrey Robin
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
higher education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.976
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1468-2273
pISSN - 0951-5224
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2273.1995.tb01666.x
Subject(s) - student debt , subsidy , debt , wright , politics , economics , higher education , public finance , public economics , finance , political science , economic growth , market economy , macroeconomics , art , law , art history
During the 1980s, a political consensus developed concerning the need to increase participation in higher education (Walker and Wright, 1990). How to finance this increase, however, was a matter of contention. While successive Conservative governments demonstrated a commitment to increasing the number of students, this aim was subordinate to their central concern of controlling public expenditure, which meant they were not prepared to meet the cost of expansion totally from the public purse. As a consequence, alternative ways of financing students were introduced which, as this paper will demonstrate, have led to a higher education system subsidized by student debt.