Exploring tuition fees as a policy instrument of internationalisation in a welfare state–the case of Sweden

Abstract

This article sheds light on some challenges that internationalisation raises for policymakers regarding public funding of higher education in a welfare state by examining policy logics for introducing tuition fees for international students in Sweden 2011. Using thematic analysis of documents related to the Swedish reform, we identify how an increasing number of international students was the perceived policy problem, threatening national students’ access to free higher education. Policy objectives included sharing the cost of internationalisation but also enabling control of cost and influx of international students, enhancing quality and strengthening national branding. Many of these objectives concur with more established understandings on why policymakers turn to the market according to a more neo-liberal ‘market’ logic. However, a policy mix of tuition fees and scholarships enabled a governance model of control, which more relates to a ‘welfare’ logic. Likewise, the policy problem indicates that a search for profit and revenue cannot simply explain tuition fee reforms for international students. By discussing how underlying normative assumptions at the policy formulation stage contrast reality ten years after the reform, it appears that revenue from the global market has been more significant for Swedish policymakers than the rhetoric suggests.