Investing in private higher education in developing countries: Recent experiences of the International Finance Corporation

Jacob van Lutsenburg Maas

2001

Data confidence 70 medium

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Abstract

Higher education, which provides mainly ‘private goods,’ is being opened to private investment in many parts of the world. The paper describes the pioneering efforts of the International Finance Corporation in this field. The IFC has approved investments in nine universities, two specialised training centres and two student loan programmes. It is too early to draw firm conclusions about the case for this form of investment, but the paper deals with some of the issues which have arisen and provides some ‘guideposts’ for evaluating future investments.