私立大學學費之管制與財務自主性

Regulation of Private University Tuition Fees and Financial Autonomy

本文從憲法上公共任務之分配與管制議題，探究國家管制私立大學學費收取之制度特性。學費收取為學校與學生建立利用關係所必要，事涉教學活動之提供與享用。作者先闡述私人興學兼具辦學理念的發揚與分擔國家高等教育任務，存有以自由權行使參與公共任務的雙面性。因生存照顧的可民營化，大學法兼具文化行政和服務經濟的管制特性。本於憲法上社會國原則與平等受教權理念，學費分擔採取限制私立大學徵收額度之方式達成。為申論我國獨特之學費管制制度，作者先取相近之市場價格管制的理論、制度與實務，縷析二項獨特的事實調查程序：指標化的調幅核算程序、調查程序前置的私程序。前者類似電信事業之調整上限制。後者採取價格資訊管制，課予大學申請決定收費基準前，特別是從事實調查與後果取向角度，應向學生公開義務。對現行指標能否切實反映大學經營成本，提出質疑。在維持大學間公平競爭與學生公平就學的兩難問題之間，除使學費應佔大學經營成本主要部份而非絕大部分之管制思維外，應從財源整體性觀點去衡平學費趨同的低度競爭。是以應從激勵獎助與有限允許財務自主方式，兼顧大學財務自主與學生承受之能力。

"This paper investigates the institutional features of government regulation of tuition fees charged by private universities in terms of the constitutional issue of distribution and regulation of public tasks. Charging tuition fees is indispensable to the building of a relationship of utilisation between universities and students, involving the provision and enjoyment of teaching activities. The author first expounds that the setting up of private universities entails both the carrying forward of the visions of universities and the sharing in the task of national higher education, wherein exists the dual nature of participating in public tasks through exercising the right to freedom. Given that“services of general interests (Daseinsvorsorge)”can be privatized, the University Act has a regulatory characteristic that embraces both cultural administration and service economy. Based on the constitutional principle of welfare state and the idea of equal right to education, the sharing of tuition fees is achieved by means of restricting the amount of fees charged by private universities. To elaborate on the regulatory system for private university tuition fees in Taiwan, this paper first compares similar theories and practices of market price regulation, and then analyzes two unique fact investigation proceedings: indicative adjustment accounting proceedings and antecedent privatization of public proceedings. The former is analogous to the price-cap-regulation for the telecommunications industry, while the latter prescribes that universities, before applying for determining their fee benchmarks, should disclose to students the obligatory price information control, particularly from the fact-investigation and consequence-oriented perspectives. Queries are raised regarding whether the present indicators can truly reflect the operating costs of universities. In the dilemma of maintaining fair competition between universities and educational equity among students, in addition to the regulative thinking that tuition fees should constitute the major, rather than the greatest, part of the ope rating cost of universities, efforts should be taken to balance the low competition resulting from tuition fee convergence from a holistic view of financial sources. Therefore, the financial autonomy of universities and affordability for students should be balanced through incentives and awards and permitting limited financial autonomy."