THE EFFECTS OF INCREASE IN TUITION FEES ON BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS' ENROLMENT IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

1.1 Introduction

Tuition fee generally refers to a mandatory charge levied upon all students covering some portion of the general underlying costs of instruction. Tuition increases have become all too common as states have cut spending to public institutions and private schools face declining enrollments. Fees increase has been a serious hindrance to access to quality education in Nigeria at the turn of the century. According to the demand law, when tuition fees become more expensive in a university the number of students that applied to the university would decrease. Demand function is a function that describes how much of a good will be purchased at alternative prices of that good and related goods, alternative income levels, and alternative values of other variables affecting demand (Baye & Prince, 2016).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Over the course of the past few decades, the cost of the higher education at public colleges and universities has risen rapidly. Adjusting for the availability of state and federal financial aid, growth in the cost of higher education has outpaced inflation and even health care. The rise in tuition has been driven by a number of factors, including a pervasive trend in the use of cost offsetting in public higher education (John Stone, 2004), and real and even nominal declines in appropriations due to state revenue short falls (Koshal & Koshal, 2000; Rizzoo & Ehrenberg, 2003).

Tertiary education can be defined as the level of education acquired after secondary education in higher institutions of learning such as Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of education and other institutions of higher learning offering correspondence courses, diplomas and certificates. Famade, Omiyale and Adebola (2015) citing Ahmed (2011) they opined that the challenges confronting tertiary institutions in Nigeria include financing and funding, the growth of private tertiary institutions, management challenges and so on but the challenge dealing the worst deathblow is that of underfunding of tertiary institutions.

Nwangwu (2005) in Famade et al (2015) stated that the foundation of education is frail when education is not well funded and the products of such foundation are weak intellectuals. When there were just few tertiary institutions, Government saddle the burden of funding the institutions solely but from the mid- 1980’s there was a massive increase in the number of tertiary institutions and in students’ enrolment in Nigeria. This increase has gotten to the point where Government openly acknowledged that it can no longer saddle the responsibility of funding institutions alone.

The Federal Government of Nigeria is increasingly finding it difficult to meet the high cost of funding tertiary education in Nigeria and if tertiary institutions in the country are to survive, there is an urgent need to seek out means of improving their funding. It is instructive to note that education is a right and not a privilege and if this is to become a reality in the Nigerian context then education needs to be subsidized and better funded at the tertiary level. In the face of the declining financial resource allocation to the education sector, there is the need for alternative channels of funding which will ensure qualitative education and graduates from Nigerian education system.

The history of higher education in Nigeria dated back to the period of colonial era with the establishment of Yaba Higher College in 1932 which marked the turning point of higher education in Nigeria. The Higher College was established to produce “assistants” who would relieve colonial administrators of menial tasks (Olujuwon, 2002). The establishment of higher educational institutions was in pursuit of meeting the global requirements of producing manpower that will serve in different capacities and contribute positively to the nation’s socio-economic and political development in Nigeria (Abdulkareem et al., 2011).

The Federal Government of Nigeria promulgated enabling law to institute higher education towards producing high level relevant manpower training, self-reliance, national development through the establishment of both conventional and special universities, polytechnics, mono-technics and colleges of education in different parts of the country by the Federal, state governments, private organizations and individuals (Abdulkareem, Fasasi and Akinubi, 2011).

The Nigerian tertiary institutions comprise of Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, Institutes of Technology and other professional institutions operating under the umbrella of their parent ministries. The institutions can be further categorised into State Government Institutions and Federal Institutions. Tertiary institutions are also grouped into Public Institutions owned by the Federal and State Government and private Institutions owned by Individuals, Religious bodies and other private organizations.

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Effects of Increase in Tuition Fees on Business Education Students’ Enrolment in Tertiary Institutions.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that critics of the tuition fees enrolment of students have increased in the demand for and enrolment in university education. According to Aina, Oyetakin and Oshun (2009), the monumental increase in student enrollment at the primary and secondary levels of education have consequently put a lot of economic, political and social pressure on the tertiary education level with the resultant financial consequences for student’s government and economy generally.

In the same vein, studies in the socio-economic background of households in over 70% are poor and on 29% of families can live on one dollar (N157.00) or above a day, which implies that the social-economic hardship experience by the parents deprives any of access to the university education as many cannot afford to pay their children’s school fees thereby not addressing the issue of access and equity. (Ukertor, 2010; Ehiametalor, 2005 and Williams 2004), also in the area of human development, Nigeria is ranked 168th in the world (Roa, 2008).

However, Nwangwu (2001) states that when parents and their children exercise their right to choose the types of higher education to pursue, it should be understood that higher education is not free or universal or compulsory, they have the duty to provide financial support for such students.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the Effects of Increase in Tuition Fees on Business Education Students’ Enrolment in Tertiary Institutions. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To examine the trend of business education students’ enrollment and tuition fees in area under study;
2. To investigate the effect of increased tuition fees/school charges on the business education student enrolment; and
3. To estimate the price elasticity of the tuition fees on business education student’s enrollment in area under study.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• To what extent do tuition fees determine/affect business education student’s enrolment?
• What is the trend of business education student’s enrollment and tuition fees in area under study?
• What are the effects of increase in tuition fees on business education student enrolment in area under study?
• What is the role government playing in reducing the tuition fees of such Universities?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: Increased tuition fees have no significant influence on business education students’ enrolment in area under study.
• H1: Increased tuition fees have significant influence on business education students’ enrolment in area under study

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1.7 Significance of Study

This study will be of great importance to all academic institutions and the area under study in particular, in implementing appropriate students’ enrollment strategies through a better understanding of the sensitivity of University education demand. Academic leaders need to understand the responsiveness of demand to tuition fees in their institutions to help them in planning and implementing correct enrolment strategies.

Another motivation for this study is the dependence of tuition revenue on enrollment. There is need to understand the importance of the demand for higher education when proposing or implementing a policy to increased tuition fees. Also, this study can help higher education decision makers in managing unexpected effects of soaring tuition fees, and in managing enrolment and tuition revenues.

Therefore, considering the importance of tuition elasticity of demand is essential in managing enrolment in academic institutions. It could be argued that using the concept of elasticity is useful in evaluating enrolment policies. In fact, elasticity is an important evaluation tool that may be used by government and academic decision makers.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Effects of Increase in Tuition Fees on Business Education Students’ Enrolment in Tertiary Institutions using Yaba Higher College in Lagos State as a case study.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

Tuition Fee: It refers to a mandatory charge levied upon all students (and/or their parents) covering some portion of the general underlying costs of instruction.

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1.11 Organization of the Study

This study shall be divided into five chapters. This study commences with the introduction of the topic. Chapter two contains the literature review which includes its conceptual framework, theoretical framework and the sources of external debt. The research methodology is outlined in chapter three while chapter four represents and analyzes the data as well as the interpretation of the findings. Chapter five, which is the last chapter, concludes and recommends.