Equity and the Finance of Higher Education.

The many new proposals advanced during the past few years for financing higher education have been promoted, almost without exception, by appealing to their important and favorable equity consequences. What is meant by the term "equity"? To what degree will various proposals help achieve greater equity, however equity is defined? What kinds of side effects might these proposals produce in the process of achieving greater equity? Questions like these are difficult to answer because no systematic framework for analyzing equity and equity effects has evolved. Traditionally, equity has been viewed as a normative matter, and consequently, little attention has been given to developing the tools required to analyze it. The need for answers to the questions posed persists, however, and this paper offers a starting point in the search for answers. It might best be viewed as an essay on equity as applied to the provision and finance of higher education. This paper focuses on undergraduate higher education. While there is jointness in the production of undergraduate education and such activities as graduate and professional education, research, public service, and the array of other activities known as higher education, it is also quite apparent that most undergraduate students are enrolled at institutions almost exclusively concerned with undergraduate teaching. It is not inappropriate, therefore, to concentrate only on undergraduate education. The focus is, moreover, on students rather than instiutions of higher education, because public policy presumably seeks to benefit students by producing more or less higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]