The Social Background of Makerere University Students and the potential for cost sharing.

The social background of Makerere students was analyzed in order to gain some insight into the distribution of scarce higher education opportunities in Uganda and assess the ability of the students to finance part of their education in the process of massifying higher education without diluting the quality of instruction. The findings were that students from well-to-do and educated families in the more prosperous districts were enjoying the existing performance-based subsidies (PBS) and the privately sponsored places programmes (PSPP) introduced in Makerere University. The study recommends that while government must retain the primary responsibility to fund higher education, the public subsidy should become more sensitive to equity and, if need be, incorporate cost-sharing, with due allowance for positive discrimination. In order to implement this, the existing PBS should gradually be replaced by an equity-based subsidy (EBS), starting with half of the funds. The funds for EBS should be allocated to the districts, which should develop capacity for identifying the most needy students for the EBS awards. Students from low-income families should compete for both PBS at national level and EBS at their district levels. A loan scheme is also recommended for students who may not be sponsored under either BPS or EBS, as well as for living expenses, which should be the responsibility of the beneficiaries.