The Education Reform Initiave hosted Prof. Nicholas Barr, from the London School of Economics, in Sabanci Museum in Istanbul. Prof. Barr talked about the higher education finance reforms in the United Kingdom (UK) which introduced a student loan system that finances university fees -- however, such loans need to be repaid only after graduation and repayments are contingent on future incomes earned. According to Prof. Barr, both the UK and international examples showed that private funds supplementing public finance helped the tertiary education system to achieve greater access with equity. Prof. Barr emphasized the role of government in regulating the higher education 'market' where students are well-informed and tax-payers are supporting a system which achieves wide participation and increased quality in tertiary education.

Short Biography of Prof. Nicholas Barr
Nicholas Barr has an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He is Professor of Public Economics at the London School of Economics, the author of numerous books and articles on the economics of the welfare state and the finance of higher education, including The Welfare State as Piggy Bank (Oxford University Press, 2001), The Economics of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press and Stanford University Press, 4th edition, 2004), and Financing Higher Education: Answers from the UK (with Iain Crawford), (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), and is currently engaged in writing Reforming Pensions (with Peter Diamond) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Social Security Review and an Associate Editor of CESifo Economic Studies and the Australian Economic Review. His teaching includes economic theory, public economics, the economics of the welfare state, the political economy of post-communist transition and topics in public policy.
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