Why did students start paying tuition fees at African universities? How did public universities become increasingly expensive for the large numbers of young people they are supposed to be educating? This book helps us to understand the reasons for this, and reminds us that change is always the result of political compromise. The book looks at the higher education reforms carried out since the 1980s in four East African countries with unique historical and political trajec-tories: Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi. Through a rigorous, well-documented analysis, the author provides valuable insights into the fundamental political issues facing development actors in the South: the transformation of state intervention, the training of national elites, and the marketing of the education sector, particularly through the highly political issue of school fees.