高等教育收费与教育公平问题的综述

高等教育学费制度改革作为我国教育领域的一项重大改革已经进行了20多年的实践,高等教育收费收入作为筹措高等教育经费的一个重要渠道,对高等教育的发展起到了关键性的作用,但关于教育实行了收费以后,有关教育公平的文题引起全社会的关注,本文就近些年的相关文章作了个综述.     

从高等教育成本审核看扩招后的高校发展

高校扩大招生规模后 ,处于社会主义初级阶段的我国高等教育迅速发展 ,高等教育资源全面紧张。我国各地高等学校根据国家三部委通知精神 ,进行高校教育成本调查审核工作 ,为国家进一步深化高等教育改革 ,合理制订高等学校收费标准 ,科学确定收费结构 ,增加教育投入 ,保持高等教育健康发展提供内容详实的基础资料。     

对进一步改革高等教育收费制度的思考

本文通过联系国家对高等教育收费改革的相关政策，对国家进一步推行教育改革的可行性进行分析，阐明笔者对收费改革方向的设想。     

基于成本分担理论的高校收费问题研究

构建一个完善的高等教育成本分担机制,是高等教育持续、健康发展的关键。文章围绕我国教育收费问题,以人力资本理论、公共商品理论、教育成本分担理论为基础,结合文献研究法、问卷法,理论联系实际,对我国高等教育收费的现状进行研究,指出目前高等教育收费水平整体偏高、收费标准"一刀切"、资助体系不完善的问题。随后提出加大政府支持、发挥高校优势、差别收费以及完善资助体系。旨在通过教育成本分担视角下高校教育收费问题的对策研究,对完善高等教育成本分担体系提供新的思路。     

高校学生欠费问题现状分析及对策

高等教育在实行扩招和收费制度改革以来,高校学生的欠费问题成了困扰高校发展的一个新难题。高校学生欠费问题正影响到学生正确价值观的形成、影响到学校工作的正常运转、影响到社会教育公平问题。对此,要规范收费标准并加大财政对教育的投入,落实国家关于贫困生的资助政策,加强学生正确的价值观教育,建立学费收缴长效机制,以保证学校的收费工作健康有序进行。     

研究生收费的制度改革研究

加世纪80年代以来,许多国家的高等教育财政都相继经历了一场重大的改革：调整高等教育成本分担的格局。确立一项较为合理的研究生收费制度是一个相当复杂的事,因而有必要在其实施前进行详细的论证,以充分考虑各方面的因素,必要时还需进行听证。本文就研究生教育收费观念的转变为主要问题进行研究和探讨,旨在促进研究生培养制度改革,优化教育结构并合理配置有限的教育资源,从而对最终能制定出一个完善的操作方案有所裨益。     

经济与教育：从大学收费制度看经济参与下的中国高等教育改革

高校实行收费政策是中国高等教育的一项重要举措,以教育收费问题为切入点,探讨了教育与经济的关系。     

谈高校教育收费的规范化问题——以公共政策理论为视角

近几年来,高校的教育收费问题一直备受社会关注。文章介绍了我国高等教育收费政策的历史嬗变,分析了政府在规范高校教育收费过程中采取的积极措施,从政策本身、政策制定者和政策执行者三个方面挖掘了高校教育收费存在高收费或乱收费的原因,并在此基础上提出了规范教育收费管理的相应对策。     

加强高校收费管理工作的途径研究

随着高等教育体制改革的不断深入，招生规模不断扩大，招生种类日渐繁多，高校办学资金来源和收费渠道呈现多元化趋势。收费管理工作作为高校财务管理的重要环节，地位逐渐显著。本文在对高校收费管理现状及存在问题进行科学分析的基础上，对加强高校收费管理工作的途径进行了有益的探讨。     

公平视角下中国高等教育收费政策的再认识

教育公平是和谐社会建设的必然要求之一。高等教育作为社会成员知识能力习得、获得认同和保持社会阶层正常流动的重要途径,其收费的设置和实施状况成为影响教育公平实现的一个重要方面。现实当中往往有许多学生因为经济困难无法负担学费而在求学的道路上走得异常艰辛,有些甚至因此不能完成学业。高等教育收费的设置和实施状况成为影响教育公平实现的一个重要问题。     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

Planned adaptation in risk regulation: An initial survey of US environmental, health, and safety regulation

In principle, we want regulatory programs to be based on current realities, as reflected for example in the best knowledge of relevant experts. That would imply that old rules now on the books should be consistent with today's knowledge base, not just what was known when a rule or standard was originally set. This paper reports on a survey of US programs, examining how often existing rules are actually updated in light of better knowledge, and identifies five programs that attempt to make policy routinely adaptive. These programs exhibit what we term Planned Adaptation: they both revise rules when relevant new knowledge appears, and take steps to produce such improved knowledge. While Planned Adaptation is rare, it is used in several nationally prominent programs, including air pollution, airplane safety, and drug safety. Planned Adaptation is a policy tool that deserves more attention.     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

The greenhouse effect: Damages,costs and abatement

The buildup of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — CO₂ in particular-appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate. This paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects, their potential costs to society, and likely costs of abatement. For a worst case scenario it is impossible to assess, in economic terms, the full range of possible non-linear synergistic effects. In the most favorable (although not necessarily likely) case (of slow-paced climate change), however, it seems likely that the impacts are within the affordable range, at least in the industrialized countries of the world. In the third world the notion of affordability is of doubtful relevance, making the problem of quantitative evaluation almost impossible. We tentatively assess the lower limit of quantifiable climate-induced damages at $30 to $35 per ton of CO₂ equivalent, worldwide, with the major damages being concentrated in regions most adversely affected by sea-level rise. The non-quantifiable environmental damages are also significant and should by no means be disregarded.The costs and benefits of (1) reducing CFC use and (2) reducing fossil fuel consumption, as a means of abatement, are considered in some detail. This strategy has remarkably high indirect benefits in terms of reduced air pollution damage and even direct cost savings to consumers. The indirect benefits of reduced air pollution and its associated health and environmental effects from fossil-fuel combustion in the industrialized countries range from $20 to $60 per ton of CO₂ eliminated. In addition, there is good evidence that modest (e.g. 25%) reductions in CO₂ emissions may be achievable by the U.S. (and, by implication, for other countries) by a combination of increased energy efficiency and restructuring that would permit simultaneous direct economic benefits (savings) to energy consumers of the order of $50 per ton of CO₂ saved. A higher level of overall emissions reduction — possibly approaching 50% — could probably be achieved, at little or not net cost, by taking advantage of these savings.We suggest the use of taxes on fossil fuel extraction (or a carbon tax) as a reasonable way of inducing the structural changes that would be required to achieve significant reduction in energy use and CO₂ emissions. To minimize the economic burden (and create a political constituency in support of the approach) we suggest the substitution of resource-based taxes in general for other types of taxes (on labor, income, real estate, or trade) that are now the main sources of government revenue. While it is conceded that it would be difficult to calculate the optimal tax on extractive resources, we do not think this is a necessary prerequisite to policy-making. In fact, we note that the existing tax system has never been optimized according to theoretical principles, and is far from optimal by any reasonable criteria.During the academic year 1989–90 Dr. Ayres was at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.During the summer of 1989 Mr. Walter was a member of the Young Scientists' Summer Program at IIASA.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: TRACING THE FLOW OF BASIC RESEARCH THROUGH MANUFACTURING AND TRADE

This paper describes flows of basic research through the US economy during the late 20th century. In addition, the paper studies the effect of the flows on scientific papers in industries and fields. This article differs from others in its use of measures of science rather than technology. Together, its results present a picture of the structure of basic research flows in a modern, science-intensive economy. Basic research flows are large within petrochemicals and drugs, and within software and communications. Flows of chemistry, physics, and engineering are common throughout all industries – biology and medicine are almost confined to petrochemicals and drugs; and computer science is nearly as restricted to software and communications. In general, basic research flows are more concentrated within scientific fields than within industries. Our findings concerning the production of scientific papers indicate that the effect of a 1% change in academic R&D spillovers significantly exceeds that of industrial spillovers. In addition, within-field effects exceed effects between-fields, while within- and between-industry effects are roughly equal. It follows that scientific fields limit basic research flows more than industries do, perhaps because large firms implicitly span a range of industries.     

Valuing Mangrove-Fishery Linkages – A Case Study of Campeche, Mexico

This paper explores the value of mangrove systems as a breeding and nursery habitat for off-shore fisheries, focusing on mangrove-shrimp production linkages in Campeche State, Mexico. We develop an open access fishery model to account explicitly for the effect of mangrove area on carrying capacity and thus production. From the long-run equilibrium conditions of the model we are able to establish the key parameters determining the comparative static effects of a change in mangrove area on this equilibrium. We then estimate empirically the effects of changes in mangrove area in the Laguna de Terminos on the production and value of shrimp harvests in Campeche over 1980–90. Our findings suggest that mangroves are an important and essential input into the Campeche shrimp fishery, but that the low levels of deforestation between 1980 and 1990 mean that the resulting losses to the shrimp fishery are still comparatively small. Over-exploitation of the fishery due to open access conditions remains the more pervasive threat, and without better management any long-run benefits of protecting mangrove habitat are likely to be dissipated.     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

An Economic Analysis and Simulation of Woodfuel Management in the Sahel

This paper presents an economic framework and a computationalmethodology for assessing the evolution of woodfuel supply costsand the spatial distribution of biomass in a Sahelian woodlandsetting. Spatial data on standing stock and the costs oftransport to market are used to construct a supply curve for fuelto a fuel-consuming location. Given an exogenously specifieddemand, the model simulates, period by period, the extraction,regeneration, and transport of wood fuels. The model is appliedto evaluate the benefits and ecological impacts of scenarios forwoodland management around the city of N'Djamena, Chad.