Overseas students' fees and the demand for education

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the effect of fees on the demand for British education by overseas students. Demand (as measured by student numbers) depends on UK fees(in US $) ralative to the US consumer price index and on OECD real income. The estimated equations, which include a distributed lag, have significant effects of fees and are reasonably stable. The estimated elasticities of demand with respect to fees are: Universities: total–0.5 undergraduates–1.0 postgraduates–0.3 Further Education: advanced–1.2 nonadvanced–0.7