There may be many reasons for the government intervention in the
market for higher education, but it can be summarized into two main
points:
- Firstly government intervein in the market for higher education
in order to maintain the standard of higher education. This is
because if there is no government intervention the institutes will
try to be cost efficient which may lead to decrease in the quality
of education which decreases the overall productivity and
efficiency of the students studying in these institutions. So the
government intervention and puts some standards which needs to be
followed in order to maintain the quality of education.
- Secondly they also intervene to ensure that the students are
not overcharged for the education, some institutes keep very high
fees according to their quality of education and hence government
needs to regulate it.
Both of the reasons lead to the market failure because even
after spending money there may not be good quality of education and
hence government intervention is necessary.
There may be some potential problems with these government
interventions such as -
- If government regulates fee charged for different courses and
if these fees are low, than it becomes difficult for the institutes
to provide quality education.
- Government intervention also decreases the supply of
educational institutes as they have to follow criteria fixed by the
government.
- There may be less flexibility for the institutes to provide
different types of courses as they may have to take prior
permission from the government to start a new course.