At the end of the last century there were significant changes in communist Europe. The whole system of values has changed. These changes are not by-passed by higher education either. After many years of entertaining ideas about free schooling, the introduction of the first tuition fees and other items characteristic for modern higher education systems were introduced. Iti s being studied how transitional societies accepted a more liberal higher education. The analysis starts with theoretical part in which the works and conclusions of other authors about the same and similar topic are presented. The theoretical part also contains an analysis of the systems of higher education of communist and post-communist societies. The emphasis of the analysis is on the presentation of tuition and public support in the above mentioned countries. At the end of the theory, it is given an overview of economic theory on the problem of research. The second empirical part, based on the regression analysis, shows whether there is a negative impact of net costs on demand for higher education. For net costs, the tuition fees, the public support and the opportunity costs of the study are used. Based on a sample of 14 countries in 2013, the hypothesis of the exclusive negative impact of net costs on the dependent variable is partially accepted. This is a consequence of a positive denomination of tuition fees that can have a two-way effect on the dependent variable, the insignificance of the opportunity cost measured by the general unemployment rate and the expected positive impact of public support on the dependent variable, measured by the relative number of enrolled students.