Who Really Bears the Cost of Education? How the Burden of Education Expenditure Shifts from the Public to the Private Sector. Education Indicators in Focus. No. 56

Despite the obvious benefits derived from education, governments face difficult trade-offs when balancing the share of public and private contributions to education. Understanding how private expenditure is sourced, through public transfers or through private funds, can make a difference in enabling access to education and provide insights into how the cost of education shifts between public and private sources of funding over time.