The Political Economy of Higher Education Finance: The Politics of Tuition Fees and Subsidies in OECD Countries, 1945–2015 by Julian L. Garritzmann (review)

Recent discourse in many countries centers on the cost of higher education. In fact, the ASHE 2016 conference theme was "Higher Education and the Public Good," highlighting debate whether higher education primarily benefits individuals or society. In the United States, there has been discussion at the state and federal level of government-backed tuition subsidies as tuition continues to set records every year. At the same time, the U.S. exists within a heterogeneous peer group of economically developed democratic countries. After many of these countries started from a common low tuition, low subsidy elite higher education system in the early 20^th century, the first few decades after World War II were critical to the development of tuition and subsidy systems in advanced economies in the mid-twentieth century. Anecdotally, citizens note that certain countries have higher taxes and enjoy a publicly-funded university education and health care, but this only represents one side of a complex story. Understanding the development of these systems requires a look at why many European countries enjoy free tuition while the U.S. has a high-tuition, high-aid policy that takes into account the politics and individual opinions about these systems. The book's unique contribution is two-fold: it provides a theoretical framework that can be used to analyze this economic-political-historical interaction and uses this theory to empirically test several commonly held assumptions about higher education finance across several countries.

Within this context of different higher education finance systems, Julian Garritzmann contributes to our understanding of higher education systems in advanced economies. In writing The Political Economy of Higher Education Finance: The Politics of Tuition Fees and Subsidies in OECD Countries, 1945–2015, Garritzmann examines the development of tuition fees and subsidies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from World War II to the present. The book explores the origins of tuition fee and subsidy development in the 33 countries as they all emerged from World War II with low-tuition, low-subsidy elite higher education systems. With this review, I highlight the strengths of Garritzmann's analysis and point to areas where research in comparative higher education finance can go next.

The book presents chapters that substantively build upon each other. Chapter 1 introduces Garritzmann's thesis and an overview of his argument that "only a 'time-sensitive' analysis of the partisan composition of government can explain why countries' tuition-subsidy systems have developed from a highly similar starting point in the mid-twentieth century to today's Four Worlds of Student Finance" (p. 4). Chapter 2 describes the Four Worlds of Student Finance. Chapter 3 illustrates four cases studies, one from each of these four worlds. Chapter 4 explores the political positions of parties across the four worlds using a wide-ranging analysis of political documentation. Chapter 5 utilizes a time-series cross-section (TSCS) regression to show changes over time in the four worlds. Chapter 6 adds an individual-level analysis of the positive feedback of the four different paths. Finally, Chapter 7 offers a conclusion and an outlook on the future. Below I describe each in detail.

OECD countries already possessed higher education systems that, while comparatively inexpensive to today's standards, were mired in low enrollment ratios through World War II. Today, this peer group of countries has formed four national paths out of electoral priorities. In Chapter 1, Garritzmann presents his thesis that the higher education finance structures seen today have been shaped by: (1) the political makeup of the government, (2) the timing of its composition, and (3) the positive feedback effects of governmental policies. Garritzmann develops this Time-Sensitive Partisan Theory that incorporates economic and sociological principles to...