Access to Higher Education Within a Welfare State System: Developments and Dilemmas

Developments in higher education in most countries over the last decades have moved towards a stronger market orientation. This is also the case in the Nordic countries but at the same time these countries seem to differ from most other countries in the sense that higher education is still connected to welfare state policies. This chapter focuses on the case of Norway. Norwegian higher education is in a state of rapid and thorough transition, which forms a useful ‘laboratory’ for research, but at the same time makes it difficult to distinguish between long-term trends and ‘noise’ created at the time of implementation. Our focus is on the relationship between the funding of higher education, especially the student support system, and access to higher education, both in terms of total enrolment trends and equity.