While subsidization of the higher education (HE) is argued against in the Development Economics (DE) literature and promoted for the love of DE in Pakistan, there is no one DE for the third world as each country situation is unique.
DE prescriptions, therefore, require country-specific examination before declared applicable in a particular country. Some of the DE's prescriptions such as the withdrawal of the HE subsidies find great appeal for reasons that are not too convincing.
Let us, therefore, examine the assumptions on the basis of which some tend to over-sell this particular DE prescription regarding HE in Pakistan. It is assumed that all women and men (as they attain adulthood by the time they reach HE for to view adult students as children is yet another sign of our underdevelopment syndrome) who reach tertiary levels of education in Pakistan are rich.
It is sadly noted that "rich" here is used rather loosely without defining the level of well-being that makes a student fall in the category of "rich" and the extent of disadvantage that categorizes them as poor.
If white collar employment is interpreted as being "rich," then it is a gross misinterpretation of the term and a complete evasion from the reality of life in higher education.
Even a quick scan of the HE environment indicates the income profile of the student body at these levels. In public universities that accommodate the majority of HE student population, it is the "satar-posh/safaid-posh" white collar class that is found in large numbers in not just public sector universities but also in public sector medical and engineering colleges/universities.
This is not a class that can be judged as "rich" by any stretch of imagination. Many of them may have been too good but not-too-expensive private sector schools at the primary and secondary levels but how they managed this kind of schooling would be a private story unique to each family.
To conclude about family's financial position only from the kind of schools they send their wards to is to introduce errors in measurement as this indicator, by itself, may not yield valid conclusions about the state of family's financial health.
Many shanty dwellers buy used electronic gadgets and use them. Does that make them rich when they cannot afford pucca shelter for themselves? So, to make tertiary education prohibitively expensive for this safaid-posh class is to deny the basic right of education to them about which there is a great deal of clamour with little insights into the societal issues.
These insights, however, emanate little from fields with a focus on number-crunching and a penchant for the bottom line. The term "safaid-posh," which is neither rich nor middle nor poor, appears in no text of business, accountancy, or economics and is, therefore, not known to "experts" in these fields.
The term safaid-posh also does not strictly follow the average consumption patterns as indicated in Engel's Laws for their choice of goods may span several classes all at the same time. Economic laws mostly give mean behaviour but variation around the mean cannot be explained only within the realm of economics.
A wider multidisciplinary view is, therefore, essential to look at the forest as a whole without getting entangled in the trees that may block the view of the fuller picture.
One need not just fingers to feel the pulse of the society but conscience and passionate pursuit as well that, in turn, emanates from a charged soul and a spirit alive and kicking characteristic of vibrant humans with a strong sense of purpose.
A related assumption is that students acquiring subsidized education are not serious about studies. One needs to ask whether those on the other side of the podium are serious about teaching. Is their lamentation from this side towards the blackboard about resistance to learning from the side facing the blackboard?
Is this resistance resisted so that the purpose of classroom meetings is achieved? If not, there are two to tango. This assumption further assumes that those paying higher fees will be serious about studies. Again, this is an important conclusion that is being drawn either on the basis of experiences in the West or in a couple of decent private sector universities in Pakistan.
What is common in these two environments is a penchant to teach and to impart and a strong push from administration and academics alike to fulfill their reason for being. They, consequently, accomplish their mission of knowledge dissemination, application, and accumulation.
Students are given no options in terms of the rigour with which they will be taught. There is no question of customer being the king or sovereign (a misapplication of this nice concept in academia) in this respect. In such environments, not only are the student loans utilized properly but also the fee they pay themselves.
In the West, utility-maximizing behaviour is found mostly on all sides of the podium occupied by adults. Cultural factors play a role too. Call a HE student a child in the West and he/she will yell, scream, and protest vehemently.
How do we expect adult behaviour from our HE students when neither they want to grow up beyond the stage of children nor do we want to see them grow up primarily due to our own vested interests? The upshot is that the nation as a whole fails to gain adulthood and is at best taught hatred of the adult, mature, and towering nations of the world.
However much we may play around with HE subsidies or fees, academic rigour and learning experience will be a function of organizational climate. For, one needs a closer look to know that learning spirit and desire is equally lacking in those in Pakistan who foot the complete bills themselves. Many of the real "rich" are made even before they join HE.
They not only know it but they say it too with impunity. All they require is a paper to look "respectable professionally" either in empires already there for them or the ones they will be able to access with ease due to family contacts.
This can, however, not be said for the country's exceptional private sector universities who allow entry only for learning and exit, however, for whichever country's service they may choose as own country virtually pushes them out!
The assumption, therefore, of relationship between own money and students' effort is a grossly simplistic one unless the institutions and the society are both engineered.
Until then no branch of science and technology will find due expression in the country unless it happens to be an exception performing under some favourable circumstances peculiar only to them for reasons also best known only to them. For, we see many a good potential in science and technology itself that went untapped in the country.
Professor Abdus Salam being the most noteworthy amongst such drained out talents. Some others who stick around despite adversity on home ground should not be named in the interest of whatever little comfort this country affords them.
In this environment that requires conformity with the establishment, however improper their outlook may be; it is social science that needs to be encouraged at the HE level to determine how flowers bloom.
Selective subsidization of higher education will impede that very process at the higher education level that leads eventually to nation-building which is not an exercise in clones-building but in encouraging diversity and then thriving on it.
This, in turn, necessitates uncontrolled growth in all areas of enquiry as it is for people to then determine collectively what "national priorities" should be. For a handful privileged elite to first determine the "national priorities" and then determine the direction of higher education is more akin to clones-building rather than nation-building for which overarching purpose the universities and the higher education system exist.
They are to be the lighthouses guiding the course of the nation rather than mere vessels that will transport only those who can afford expensive tickets on them with the multitude falling by the wayside.