An adult life cycle perspective on public subsidies to higher education in three countries

Studies of the incidence of public susidies to higher education have commonly disregarded adjustements to an appropriate age range in the parental reference populations. Even where the need for such adjustements is noted, implications have rarely if ever been systematically analyzed. Moreover, no attention whatsoever seems to have been paid to implications for adult life-cycle experiences let alone secular changes in experiences over successive cohorts. The present paper seeks to fill part of these gaps, drawing on relevant parts of our research on "the political economy of government support of higher education : studies in Chile, France and Malaysia".