Are the talents wisely spent? The case of student subsidies in Romanian higher education

Abstract

In this article we investigate both the evolution and the current state of the public policies regarding student subsidies in post-communist Romania. We look into how the criteria on which student subsidies are distributed reflect an “equity” or a “quality” approach. This normative perspective is completed with a statistical account of the categories of students who appropriate student subsidies. We argue that quality was the staple criterion for the distribution of student subsidies over the past decade and that the present arrangements have significant shortcomings from both an “equity” and a “quality” perspective. We conclude that the current context is favourable for a shift towards a more balanced relation between quality and equity, due to the expansion of the support schemes and the distribution of student subsidies to more numerous and heterogeneous categories of students.