Direct Admissions, Tutoring, and Access to Higher Education

The greater opportunity for high school students in seeking direct admission into the university also comes with additional expenses for their parents to shoulder. Their cost of education rises further with extra classes taken at cram schools. This growing financial burden would make it difficult for poor families. The ensuing disparity in access to higher education in Thailand deserves a careful study with household economics serving as the underlying framework. The survey result from a sample of 705 freshmen class of 2014 shows that 6 out of 10 students had direct admission. Those who had performed well in high school would prefer to take tutorial courses at cram schools. The multinomial probit analysis finds that a student is more likely to gain a college admission if one of these favorable conditions is true: (1) father earns a high income (2) mother is highly educated (3) student attends a public school (4) students earns a high grade point average or (5) students takes tutorial classes.