The Higher Education a Private or a Public Good?

Abstract

This paper aims to treat the views that see the higher education as private or a public good. Many countries based in liberal and neoliberal theories have started to see the higher education as private good. They see the higher education as market of a capitalist kind when demand and supply arrange each other. The supply is the high education, offered from universities and the demand has to do with people that want to take this education. This relation is treated as business where the consumer pays for the product. The education has a price that is paid by the subject that buys it. This view is criticized by other, which think higher education is a public good because all society benefits for it. Questions that arise are; Does the public benefits from higher education? Is it the education more expensive than the benefit? Is the high education a profitable business as other business or not? Must the states continuous to subsidize the higher education or not? What can happen if the state will treat the high education as business? Those are some of the question that will take answer in this paper. The method of work is based in analyses of theories and practices that are known in higher education.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3s1p432