Who Benefits From Four-Year Higher Education in Turkey? A Case Study of Law School

In many countries, a higher education system which is based on welfare state practices prevails. In this system, the services are substantially provided by the state free of charge or at quite low prices. Since the services are financed by taxes, additional sources cannot be provided; and because of the fact that it doesn't entail a real cost benefit comparison by the users, it leads to inefficiency. From the early 80s on, there has been a tendency towards the marketing mechanisms in the provision of many public services such as education due to both strong theoretical and empirical reason, and the restrictions in public financing. Together with this tendency, the question of who benefits from education services is tried to be answered in order to discuss the stimulation of activities and additional resources on a reasonable base. The aim of this study is to determine whether it is the individual or the society who benefits from this public service at the higher education level by calculating private and social return rates through internal return rate technique which is one of the cost benefit analysis method. Findings from calculations have shown that the individual gains more than the society after a four-year university education.