[netcan]

Sarcasm aside, yes.

The Aussie HECS system is more like the European style systems than american ones where universities compete in a semi-free market. Unis get paid a set amount per student. Student contributions are a fixed contribution to the total. Including the subsidized loans but not including founding & research grants to Universities, they account for about 25% of total costs, an incentive to take it seriously but not a pay-you-own-way system. Very far from a free market.

The interesting element of the Aussie system is that they have maintained competitiveness and a steep quality curve more similar to the American environment with the best Unis (eg ANU & Melbourne) ranked much high internationally than the those just a step down locally. Australia has more highly ranked Unis than most European countries with larger populations.

But.. Judging by inflation in international & (the less subsidized) "full fee place" tuition, fees are rising fast down under too.

[brazzy]

It seems to me that the bizarre excesses of the "education bubble" are the direct result of a free market in education and prove that it's a bad idea.

Education is not something where there should ever be an attempt to capture the consumer surplus.

[hackinthebochs]

The education bubble is in fact caused by the opposite of the free market. On one end you have government subsidies and no corresponding price controls which inflate demand and drive up prices. On the other end you have no negative feedback mechanism in terms of shedding the debt in bankruptcy for degrees that turn out to be worthless.

There is no downside for institutions to continually inflate prices, so they do. Incentives run the world.