A great number of economists and other experts have written papers and books in
the last 50 years concerning the funding of higher education (see e.g. citations in
Woodhall 2007), but almost all of them seem to ignore a UN document that is
adopted and ratified in most countries of the world, thus it is considered as a law
in
action. Article 13, Section 2, (c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights tells that “[the States Parties to the Covenant recognize that,
with a view to achieving the full realization of the right of everyone to education]
higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity,
by
every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free
education”(UN 1966; italicized by the authors). Of the 47 member countries of the
EHEA, 43 have ratified this Covenant, except for Andorra, the Holy See, Moldova
and the FYRM. While—in accordance to 2, (b) of the same Article—secondary
education in almost all countries have been made free for anyone (even partly
compulsory in most of the countries), the tendency in higher education seems to be
the opposite, also in most of the EHEA countries.
