International Partner Centers

The International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project has established formal "partnerships" with three international university-based centers: The Educational Policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa (George Subotzky); the Center for International and Comparative Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China (Prof. Hong Shen); and the Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship at Urals State University in Ekaterinburg, Russia (Professor Alexy Kluyev). The partnerships provide partial support for research on the broad themes of cost-sharing, tuition and financial assistance. Each partner provides information on the costs of higher education in their country and on existing financial aid and loan programs, and is encouraged to nominate advanced graduate students or junior faculty for visiting fellow posts at the Project in Buffalo.

Partnership News from 2001

The partnership with the University of the Western Cape emerged from wider ties that the University at Buffalo has with the University of the Western Cape. The partnership agreement was formed after a summer 1999 study tour of South Africa by Professor Johnstone, which included a lecture on worldwide trends in cost-sharing to faculty, students, and guests at the Educational Policy Unit. The partnership with Western Cape facilitated the hiring of a South African doctoral student, Meagan Van Harte, from TeacherÕs College Columbia University. Meagan will focus her dissertation research on compliance with elements of cost-sharing in South Africa. She will examine the degree to which students do and do not pay either the tuitions or the loan repayments due--and the reasons why, with particular attention to the underlying ideological contexts and the concept of redress.

The partnership with Huazhong University of Science and Technology emerged from established scholarly ties between Professor Hong Shen and the Institute for Higher Education at HUST, and Professor Bruce Johnstone and the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education. Johnstone visited and lectured at HUST in the summer of 1999, and Professor Shen participated in the Conference on cost-sharing in Buffalo in November of that year (which launched the formal project). The partnership led to, and partially supported, Professor Hong ShenÕs work with the UNESCO project on student loans in Asia (on which Advisory Committee colleague Adrian Ziderman was the principal expert). Prof. Shen and her students are also conducting other studies on the theme of higher educational finance and accessibility, including research attempting to determine the effect of cost-sharing (most specifically, the advent in China of tuition) on higher educational participation of women, minorities, and rural students. The Institute for Higher Education at HUST also sent a graduate fellow, Hongtao Li in the fall of 2001, who studied, and will continue to be a resource on, student loans in China.

The partnership with Urals State University in Russia began with a lecture visit of Professor Johnstone to Ekaterinburg and Urals State University in 2001. The partnership placed a graduate fellow, Rimma Shamsutdinova, in Buffalo for the fall 2001 semester. Back in Ekaterinburg, Rimma intends to study the so-called "dual track" tuition policy characteristic of Russia and many other countries that comply with laws prohibiting the charging of tuition fees by providing free higher education (only) to students scoring highest on the university entrance examinations, but allowing tuition to be charged to all other students. The partnership has also led to two articles by Johnstone translated into Russian (and probably soon more) in Alexy KluyevÕs Russian journal on University Planning and Management.

5/26/02