Information provision and preferences toward tuition introduction in public universities: evidence from a survey experiment in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT Public higher education is chronically under-funded in developing countries, making private investment necessary for human capital development. We investigate if information provision mobilizes support for private investment in public higher education by employing an online RCT in Afghanistan. We find that information cues impact respondents’ support for how education should be financed. Respondents that received information about the current amount of funding devoted to different levels of education (including tuition amounts for private tertiary programs), became more partial to prioritizing public funding for primary and secondary education over tertiary education but also became more supportive of tuition introduction in public universities.