From the Garden of Eden to the bachelor’s cemetery: a historical overview of higher education financing in postcolonial Ghana

Called the Garden of Eden treatment, after independence, university students in Ghana enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle unknown to most citizens. However, by the end of the twentieth century, a cost-sharing education policy was introduced, to the displeasure of students. This paper provides a historical overview of the financing of higher education institutions in Ghana from 1951 to the Fourth Republic – Nkrumah’s free university education policy, Busia’s attempted cost-sharing policy, and Rawlings’s implemented academic user fees. It further highlights diverse students’ reactions to governmental policies, from cooperation to mistrust to outright opposition. The article utilises a qualitative content analysis approach with primary and secondary sources to investigate the phenomenon of higher education financing in Ghana. The results indicate that historical factors such as the need to replace the colonial administrators, the quest for development, and the belief in education as a social good influenced Nkrumah’s fee-free higher education policy. In contrast, the introduction of academic user fees was influenced by the declining economy from the 1970s, increasing demand for higher education, and neoliberal policies. These neoliberal policies have greatly affected equity and inclusion within Ghana’s higher education system through new forms of social exclusion and widened economic disparities.