Description of the paper – e.g. topic, research question, objective, purpose, value, conceptual or theoretical framework, state of the artThis paper presents critical analysis of the answers to the question of whether or not the introduction of university fees is a social injustice and a violation of international law and students’ rights. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the introduction of university fees is a violation of Article 13 of the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This article obliges the States which have ratified it to make higher education “equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education”. That means that everyone who is capable of completing higher education is entitled to receive it in an increasingly free system. It is surprising and cynical that, despite the fact that the introduction of university fees is an obvious case of breaching international law and violating students’ rights, some States do this although they know what they are doing. On the other hand, the answer to the question of whether university fees are a social injustice as well is not so clear. There are two main answers to this question. The first is that university fees are a social injustice since some people with the aptitude and willingness to study are denied access to higher education because they cannot afford it. The second answer is just the opposite: “free” higher education is unjust because it is not free at all: it is paid for by taxpayers and, since the people who attend higher education are from disproportionately better-off backgrounds, taxpayer finance is pro-rich. Therefore, if both of the two answers are true, then the States (governments) are faced with a dilemma: they have to choose between mutually exclusive alternatives—free higher education or university fees. The problem is that whichever they choose, the result will always be a social injustice. In addition to these topics the paper will also discuss the argument (used in Slovenia for justifying the introduction of university fees) that the introduction of university fees abolishes social injustice because it abolishes the unjust difference between regular students (who do not have to pay tuition fees) and part-time students (who must pay them). The argument is problematic because of two reasons. First, if the difference between the two categories of students is unjust, this injustice could also be abolished by abolishing university fees for all students. Second, this difference could be understood as unjust only if we think, like Rawls, that desert is irrelevant to justice. In this case the status of regular students (including free of charge higher education), which has been achieved on the basis of such students’ merit (good educational achievements in secondary school), would be irrelevant to justice as well. Critical analysis If we accept that the philosophy of education is first and foremost an interrogation and that we (as philosophers of education) have to “put into question all that we know or believe about education” (Reboul), then we also have to do this for the concepts social justice and the arguments for and against the tuition fees. Therefore, I expect that this critical analysis will provide some new elements for the understanding of this old and well-known topic. Van Beuren, G., »Fees: a social injustice«, Education Guardian, 1. 7. 2003 Biffl G. and Isaac, J., »Should Higher Education Students Pay Tuition Fees?«, European Journal of Education, 2002 / 4Barr, N., »Higher Education Funding«, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 2004 /2 Hursthouse, R., »Fallacies and Moral Dilemmas«, Argumentation 1995 / 4, Laval, Ch., L' école n'est pas une entreprise, La Découverte, Paris 2003 Nozick, R., Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books, New York 1974Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1999 Kodelja, Z., O pravicnosti v izobraževanju, Krtina, Ljubljana 2006Kodelja, Z., "Šolske reforme v imenu novih vrednot", Pogledi na reforme, Znanstvena knjižnica FDV, Ljubljana 2006 Vodopivec, M., »Uvedba sistema 'odložene šolnine' v slovensko visoko šolstvo«, Gospodarska gibanja 2002/343 National journal