Kwiek, Marek2014-01-222014-01-222013Comparative Education Review. Vol. 57. No. 3, 2013, pp. 553-576http://hdl.handle.net/10593/9862Access to higher education in Poland is changing due to the demography of smaller cohorts of potential students. Following a demand-driven educational expansion after the collapse of communism in 1989, the higher education system is now contracting. Such expansion/contraction and growth/decline in European higher education has rarely been researched, and this article can thus provide a possible scenario for what might occur in other European postcommunist countries. On the basis of an analysis of microlevel data from the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions, I highlight the consequences of changing demographics for the dilemmas of public funding and admissions criteria in both public and private sectors.enPolish higher educationhigher education reformsequityequitable accesssocial justiceuniversity reformsEU-SILC dataaccessibilitydemographicsprivate higher educationprivate sectorpublic-privateprivate sector growthprivate sector declinetuition feescost-sharingpublic fundinguniversity fundingpublic policyhigher education researchcomparative educationinternational educationintergenerational transmissionPolish reformspostcommunismtransitionmarket reformsmassificationuniversalizationmicro-level dataEU Survey on Income and Living ConditionsPolandArtykuł