Public investment and higher education inequality

Abstract

Empirical results show that children from high income households achieve higher levels of education and are more likely to be enrolled in post compulsory school. Theoretical findings fail to answer clearly whether greater public investment in the higher education system effectively decreases the inequality between the educational attainment of rich and poor children. We show that if the child receives a monetary transfer from his parents and allocates it between private consumption and investment in private additional education, then a further public investment decreases the educational gap. This result holds under the assumptions of both sub-stitutability and complementarity between private and public education.Higher education inequality; Public education; Altruism