The effects of tuition fees in higher education

高等教育经费日益成为国内和国际上激烈辩论的话题。特别是，学生是否应该以及在多大程度上应该为他们的教育费用私人出资的问题受到了高度关注。在过去二十年中，一些国家(例如德国、英国和美国)引入或提高了学费，一些国家(例如爱尔兰和前述德国)取消了学费，而其他国家(例如北欧国家)从未引入学费。在这种背景下，拟议的项目将研究德国引入和取消学费的影响，无论是对未来学生(“广泛差距”)还是对在引入或取消学费时已经入学的学生(“密集差距”)。该项目将使用德国所有学生的行政个人水平数据，并结合差异方法。这种计量经济学方法利用了德国的背景，从2006年开始部分引入收费，随后在2008年至2014年交错取消收费，这提供了一个独特的自然实验。该项目将从三个重要方面扩展现有的关于高等教育私人成本的文献。首先，该项目将同时考虑引入和取消收费的影响，这两种收费不一定是对称的。其次，该项目将研究一系列不同的结果，包括入学、完成、持续时间、科目选择、期末成绩和移民到其他州。收费可能会对其中一些结果产生预期的影响，而对其他结果则可能产生不利的影响。第三，该项目将研究广泛和密集的保证金效应，而不是单独研究其中之一。这一点尤其重要，因为现有文献表明，广泛而密集的保证金效应可能会起到相反的作用。总体而言，本项目旨在概述学费在所有利润率和各种结果方面的影响。这种全面的分析是必要和相关的--无论是从国际和国家角度，还是从科学和政策角度。

Higher education funding is increasingly a topic of heated national and international debate. In particular, the question if, and to what extent, students should contribute privately to the costs of their education has received intense attention. Over the past two decades, a number of countries introduced or raised tuition fees (e.g., Germany, England, and the USA), some abolished fees (e.g., Ireland and the aforementioned Germany), while others never introduced fees (e.g., the Nordic countries).Against this backdrop, the proposed project will examine the effect of the introduction and abolishment of tuition fees in Germany, both for prospective students (“extensive margin”) and for students who were already enrolled when tuition fees were introduced or abolished (“intensive margin”). The project will use administrative individual-level data for all students in Germany in combination with a difference-in-differences approach. This econometric approach exploits the German setting with the partial introduction of fees starting in 2006 and the subsequent staggered abolishment of fees between 2008 and 2014, which offers a unique natural experiment. The project will expand the existing literature on private costs in higher education in three important dimensions. First, the project will consider both the effects of introducing and abolishing fees, which need not be symmetric. Second, the project will study a broad range of different outcomes, including enrollment, completion, duration, subject choice, final grades, and migration to other states. Fees might have desired effects on some of these outcomes and undesired effects on others. Third, the project will study both extensive as well as intensive margin effects and not just one of them separately. This is particularly important because the existing literature suggests that extensive and intensive margin effects might go in opposite directions. Overall, this project aims to provide an overview of the effects of tuition fees at all margins and for various outcomes. Such comprehensive analysis is necessary and relevant - both from international and national perspectives, as well as from scientific and policy perspectives.