Tuition payments, known primarily as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English, refers to a fee charged for educational instruction during higher education.
Tuition payments are charged by educational institutions in some countries to assist with funding of staff and faculty, course offerings, lab equipment, computer systems, libraries, facility upkeep and to provide a comfortable student learning experience.
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Some methods students use to pay for the cost of tuition include:
Tuition is one of the costs of a post-secondary education in the U.S. The total cost of college in the U.S. is called the cost of attendance or the "sticker price" and in addition to tuition it can include room and board, travel expenses, books, fees, and other expenses such as computers.
Most students (and their families) who pay for tuition and other education costs don't have enough savings to pay in full while they are in school. Some students must work and/or borrow money to afford an education. In the U.S., student financial aid is available to defray the cost of a post-secondary education.
Developed countries have adopted a dual scheme for education: while basic (i.e. high-school) education is supported by taxes rather than tuition, higher education is usually given for fee or tuition.
People may purchase tuition insurance to protect themselves from fees related to involuntary withdrawal (for example, illness or death of a legal guardian).
In medieval Europe, the universities were institutions of the Roman Catholic Church. As they mainly trained clergy, these universities did not have any need to exact fees from the students. Their situation was comparable with the modern corporate universities and military academies.
Later in most Protestant countries, the main duty of the universities was the training of future civil servants. Again, it was not in the interest of the state to charge tuition fees, as this would have decreased the quality of civil servants. On the other hand, the number of students from the lower classes was usually kept in check by the expenses of living during the years of study, although as early as the middle 19th century there were calls for limiting the university entrance by middle-class persons. However, a typical family could not afford educating a son, let alone a daughter, even if the education itself was free. A similar situation exists today in many Third World countries, where the expenses of "free" school (e.g., food, books, school uniform) prevent some children from attending even primary school.
After World War II, an enhanced standard of living and the existence of free university education in many countries enabled more working-class youths to receive a degree, resulting in the inflation of education and enlarged middle classes. In countries with tuition fees, similar progress was effected with state study loans, grants, scholarships, the G.I. Bill, and other financial instruments. It has been proposed that the strong class separations visible in British society result from the fact that the expansion of education there has been less efficient than in continental Europe.