By CONRAD DE AENLLE


College tuition and other fees have risen for years in many countries, and the economic and financial crisis almost ensures that the trend will persist or worsen.

Students and their families will have to get used to bearing a greater share of the burden, the experts say. But universities may be forced to operate more efficiently and frugally, they say, as those who pay the bills become more cost-conscious shoppers.

Margaret Spellings, senior adviser at the Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, and secretary of education under President George W. Bush, blames government’s failure to demand more value for the money spent, and an elitism that she says is entrenched in academia. “Affordability is an issue worldwide,” said Ms. Spellings, “ but an interest in reform is going up for the first time ever.”

Soaring demand for university places is also driving up costs, as is a desire by governments to accommodate the demand. “Part of the problem in much of the world is exploding enrollments,” said D. Bruce Johnstone, emeritus professor of education at the State University of New York in Buffalo. He said conditions were especially acute in developing nations.

And he cited a Western penchant for academic egalitarianism .

“An expectation of an entitlement to participation in a research university is part of the problem,” Mr. Johnstone said. He noted that secondary school graduates in France and Germany who pass a national examination are guaranteed university admission.

Tuition rose 106 percent between 1997 and 2007 at American public universities and 76 percent at private universities, to $7,171 and $30,260, respectively, according to the National Center for Education Statistics .

It is lower everywhere else, although it can be quite high relative to incomes, especially in the developing world. The 23 million students attending Chinese universities pay about $3,000 a year, Mr. Johnstone said; the government has warned that fees will go up .

Tuition in India varies , he said, but it works out to about $600 a year for average universities and much more for the elite technology institutes.

Chinese and Indian schools have no shortage of applicants, but in Japan, enrollments are shrinking.

The average tuition there is about $4,500.

Tuitions are assessed at much lower rates in Continental Europe, Mr. Johnstone noted.

“European countries introduce tuition fees amid enormous political controversy ,” he remarked. Eventually conditions deteriorate and the authorities are forced to increase fees, he said, “and then everyone really screams.”

Official Europe has begun to accept the idea of tuition, with an important caveat. Dennis Abbott, the European Commission spokesman on education, pointed to “a distinct trend to increased cost sharing” between students and state sources, although he stressed that fees “should be supported by grants and/or loans .”

Higher tuition is not the only suggestion for closing the funding gap. A 2006 report by the Center for European Reform, a London-based, centrist research organization, encouraged European universities to become more competitive and more entrepreneurial and, although it did not say so explicitly, more American.

The authors also recommended paying faculty on the basis of merit; lobbying aggressively with state and private funding sources, like alumni; and wooing corporate benefactors.

One way to improve affordability and productivity, Mr. Abbott said, is to make sure first that students at universities want and need to be there.

“Too many young people are embarking upon university careers but dropping out before completing their courses,” he said. “This represents a missed opportunity, both in terms of the human potential of the individual student and in terms of the best value for money. Better advice and guidance, combined with improved support, including financial support, should be made available.”

Ms. Spellings said she expected an increase in “a la carte, hybrid, technology- based education,” in which students take courses in person, online and at times of their own choosing. “Consumers are demanding it,” she said.

“Things are starting to change, as prices have gotten so ridiculous,” Ms. Spellings continued. “People are starting to ask the right questions that would have been heretical five years ago. Universities have enjoyed their ivory tower status of being above it all, but they’re beginning to change and it’s happening worldwide.”