As governments are increasingly turning to cost sharing in order to meet the growing demand for, and decreasing government investment in, public higher education, the choice among different tuition fee policies becomes of great importance. Tuition fee policies and the financial assistance policies that accompany them are critical both for the very considerable revenue at stake and for the potential impact on higher education accessibility and the implications for equity and social justice. This paper looks at tuition fees in an international comparative perspective in the context of this rich mixture of finance, ideology and politics. (Contains 2 tables.)