In a period of student loan scandals and U.S. financial market instability impacting on the cost and availability of student loans, this paper looks at alternative models of higher education funding. In this context, it also considers the level of financial support that the government should provide to higher education.

In most countries, it is the state that has been taking over the support of universities and of teaching hospitals, a trend that has accelerated rapidly over the past 25 years to meet the expanding needs of higher education and of health care. In medicine the problem of university autonomy is further complicated by the long-standing custom that…