Is expenditure on higher education per student converging across EU-15 countries?

Abstract

This article examines the trend in expenditure per student at higher education institutions in the EU-15 countries, during the period 1998–2006. The results show that there was a tendency towards convergence (as measured by sigma and beta convergence analysis). The ratio of convergence is higher after 2001, suggesting that the implementation of European-level policies (e.g. the Bologna Declaration and the Lisbon Strategy) had an impact not only in the political arena, but also at an economic level. The convergence has been driven more by private financial resources than by public ones, supporting evidence for a gradual transformation of the patterns of financing higher education in Europe. There are elements that continue to influence the level of expenditure of individual countries; mainly their wealth as measured by GDP per capita.