Tuition Fees and Student Migration (1.Edition)

There are already significant streams of school graduates attending university elsewhere. Differences in the intensity occur by the demographical situation of a region, but also by its population density, its infrastructure and its geographical location. In order to understand why these streams occur, we analyzed the determinants that are relevant in terms of education. Having the common findings of American research in student migration, traditional determinants of migration and also some pieces of human capital theory in mind, we started developing our own theoretical model which is based on the assumption that students intuitively maximize their utility according to their (non-monetary) preferences. We then formulated ten hypotheses on this basis, which we tried to mirror in a special survey, as the existing data was not sufficient enough to meet our needs. More than 11,000 people participated and helped us - also with feedback - to test our assumptions. In general, we discovered that there is only a small influence of tuition on current, as well as on prospective students. For choosing a university, personal factors and academics are almost equally important. We did split this up, as we wanted to see how students choose their institutions and what personal characteristics lead to a migration decision due to tuition. As assumed, income, education, structure and type of a program, as well as professional occupation, origin and previous transfer actions have a significant effect; others, like age, do not. In answering the research question "Causes tuition rising a shift in existing student migration patterns and does it lead to a changed university choice behavior?", we are able to say that in average it does not, at least not significantly and at least not yet. For subgroups this differs a lot and tuition fees will matter for the choice of institution by prospective students