By American standards, tuition and fee charges are very low among the private institutions in these countries. Yet, even the average per semester charge in each country represents a substantial portion of the average personal income. The key question concerns where students are obtaining the resources to pay for tuition and fees absent national loan and grant systems. While a new student loan system has been inaugurated in Poland and one is under review for Hungary, their establishment does not explain the dramatic enrollment growth of the past seven years. To pay the costs of higher education in the private sector, students are some-how marshaling funds from a variety of sources and investing in their future.
Some differences exist between countries in terms of the growth rates by institutional type.
Survey data reveal that many new private institutions now operating in these countries are operationally frail and would be rated as marginal operations by most Western higher education analysts. Of the 69 institutions for which data were obtained in Poland and Hungary, more than two-thirds were rated low in both viability and legitimacy. The findings suggest that the vast majority of private institutions in these countries remain highly vulnerable to a variety of market and policy forces and could crumble or wither if circumstances tilt against them. Despite such operational weakness, one of the strongest attributes of the private sector in this region is the pioneering spirit that has enabled institutions to grow and develop in ways that could not have been imagined a decade ago. There is ample evidence of innovation in course design, programming, and scheduling.