Tuition fees as a policy instrument – The introduction of tuition fees in Sweden

Internationalization in higher education remains a key political issue. The way governments try to steer and actively develop internationalization is however rather unstudied. The aim of this paper is to analyse tuition fees through the lens of national policy making as an instrument to govern internationalization, by analysing the introduction of tuition fees in Sweden. Based on official documents an analytical framework is developed to analyse tuition fees as a policy instrument. Initial findings show that tuition fees are introduced by the government to govern the internationalization based on four rationales: quality, national branding, cost sharing and strategy.