Abstract:

The question of which goods and services will be offered by the public is still important in the public economy. Education is not accepted as public goods and services, when considering the criteria used in the determination of public goods and services, which are not competitive in consumption and cannot be excluded from consumption. The public financing of education is entirely related to the externalities that these goods and services offer to society. In addition to this, the distribution of personal benefit-social benefits varies depending on the level of education. For example, while the benefit offered to society in the first stages of education is more than the personal benefit, with the progression of the level of education, personal benefit precedes the social benefit. The most important justification put forward by those who argue that higher education should not be funded by public resources is that the personal benefit is higher at this level of education and the advantage that education offers to the person will be a financial return. In such a case, since the externality monetized, the obligation to finance the service with public resources will be eliminated. However, it is also a fact that this scenario is completely dependent on the participation of individuals in employment and will lose its validity if sufficient employment is not created for graduates. For example, if unemployment reaches high rates among the educated and young populations, as in our country, it would be meaningless to say students that they will benefit from their education in the future and therefore they have to bear the costs of education themselves.

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