Private cost of higher education a socio-economic analysis

In India, higher education sector has expanded at phenomenal rate in recent decades. Despite this expansion the system of higher education is faced with several challenges in relation to finance, equality condition, relevance of programmes, skill based training, etc. Hence an attempt was made to estimate the unit cost of education, identify the determinants of cost of education and analyze the impact of socio-economic variables on enrolment decision. The evidence gathered from 113 randomly selected students from a private institution in Madurai district revealed that the cost of education had imposed a heavy burden on the low income groups and gains from higher education was mostly appropriated by students belonging to higher caste, higher income group and better educated families.