What Has Driven Increased Demand for Higher Education in West Africa Economic and Monetary Union Countries Between the 1990s and the Turn of the 2000s?

Literature cumulated evidence indicating an increased demand for higher education over the period 1990s and at the turn of 2000s in West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries, questioning the mainstream assumption that increased costs of higher education coupled with low revenues of students’ families, through providing deterrence to prospective students, results in decreased demand in higher education. It becomes, therefore, puzzling to observe that despite existence of such barriers as increased enrolment costs and low student family revenues, these countries have, nonetheless, experienced increased demand for higher education. This observation prompted the question: What has driven increased demand for higher education in West Africa Economic and Monetary Union countries between the 1990s and the turn of the 2000s? The paper use Process Tracing to investigate higher education institutions supply, accessibility, and affordability, and downplays the relevance of mainstream rational choice theories, as they are too often pressed into service as providing the relevant frameworks for explaining demand for higher education, while advocating the relevance of the public policy-driven model as the conceptual framework accounting for the observed increase.