Making Higher Education Affordable: The Role of Publicness in Enhancing Accessibility

A central question in public administration is whether public organizations differ from private ones. While organizational publicness theory has advanced this debate, research on its outcomes remains limited. This study examines how three dimensions of publicness—regulative, normative, and cultural—individually and jointly influence universities’ efforts to promote affordable higher education. Using data from 211 Korean universities and focusing on three indicators—equal opportunity admissions, tuition waivers, and scholarships—the study identifies both direct and interactive effects. The results show that regulative, normative, and cultural dimensions are significantly associated with affordability, though their influence varies across policy instruments. Importantly, the findings reveal that interactions between regulative and normative publicness do not always reinforce one another; instead, under certain conditions, they may attenuate or redirect the effects of one another. These results underscore the complexity of publicness, demonstrating that dimensions can complement or conflict with one another in shaping outcomes.