過去20年來，各國政府面臨教育投資持續性衰退，學生與家長被要求負擔更高比例的教育成本。這種教育成本由納稅人轉移至受教家庭或個人的現象，連帶導致學生接受教育的經濟壓力升高。然而，面對高漲的求學成本，唯有設計良善的財務援助措施，才是確保公平入學的重要憑藉。基於上述，本文採取文獻分析方法，目的在檢視高等教育日益顯著的成本分攤現象，解析傳統以來各國政府所提供的財務援助措施，文中特別關注1990年代以來新興的「依據收入償還貸款」，以此做為政策決策之參考。本研究發現，傳統的援助措施除了貸款型式外，皆不具成本分攤功能；而新式的貸款機制能克服「教育投資不確定性」，擁有「全面違約保護」，兼顧增加大學校院收益、分攤教育成本，以及協助公平入學的政策目標，對未來高等教育財政深具意義。

Cost-sharing has been identified as one of the most prominent development in higher education finance for the past twenty years. The steady retreat of the taxpayer in funding students and higher education institutions has substantially caused the increasingly financial burden to prospective students/families. Therefore， it is essential that well-designed and organised financial aid programs to students are seen as both necessity and precondition for ensuring equal access to higher education in an era of rising study cost. Based on the preceding statement， the purpose of this paper， adopting literature analysis as research method， attempts to examine available financial aid to students initiated by governments under the overwhelming development of costsharing. Our particular attention is paid to a new type of loan mechanism， called ‘income contingent loan’， gaining its popularity since the 1990s. Two main findings step from this paper: 1. almost all of the traditional financial aid mechanisms are not consistent with the rationales of cost-sharing except student loan; 2. the new income contingent loan is deemed to be able to generate additional revenue， share higher proportion of educational costs， and ensure equal access to higher education institutions. These developments bring significant implications to higher education finance.