Over the last decade, many countries have experienced dramatic increases in university enrolment, which, when not matched by compensating increases in other inputs, have resulted in larger class sizes. Using administrative records from a leading UK university, we present evidence on the effects...

This paper – a companion to Iain Crawford's and my earlier evidence to the SelectCommittee (Barr, 2002a,b,c,d,e; Crawford, 2002) – offers a strongly supportive assessmentof the strategy in the White Paper (Department for Education and Skills, 2003).[...]

How do you fund university education? In the UK, the governmentplans to introduce variable fees from 2006, to be paid back after thestudent graduates, but the debate continues worldwide. What isthe best solution, offering what people want but at a realistic price?Nicholas Barr offers his...

Rather than being a handicap, the proposals to introduce top-up fees will prove aboon to students.[...]

Universities, parents and poorer students will allbenefit under the Government’s plans for top-upfees.[...]

How best to widen university access - by abolishing fees, as the Tories suggest, or byenhancing student loans, as the government plans?[...]

Universities need cash, students need support and there are too few working-classentrants. After a two-year extension, Charles Clarke and the class of '73 are all set todeliver answers to these problems. Nicholas Barr offers a guide to how you, theexaminers, should mark their responses.[...]

We exploit a universe dataset of state school students in England with linkedtest score records to document the evolution of attainment through school fordifferent ethnic groups. The analysis yields a number of striking findings. First,we show that, controlling for personal characteristics, all...

[...]In this paper, I examine two methods of measuringthe value of better schools. One involves following individualsover time to determine how the quality of theirschooling affects outcomes later in their lives; the otherinvolves calculating parental valuation of better schoolstoday. I review...

[...]The central point is simple: far and away themost important determinant of how quickly studentslearn is the effort of students themselves. It follows thatan increase in schools’ expectations of students couldhave important effects on the quality of public schooling.By establishing a...