A recent report says tuition fees at the United States, United Kingdom and Korea are the top three most expensive in the world.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), through its latest edition of Education at a Glance, showed how the countries are ranking in terms of cost of education.

The organisation analysed education at all levels in 42 locations - 34 OECD member countries as well as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the Russian Federation and South Africa - in 2008 and 2009.

OECD noted a sharp rise in the cost of higher education in the United States, adding this situation has already led to a relative stagnation in the number of people going on to university.

Meanwhile, students and parents at UK fear their country's universities could top international league tables when fees skyrocket next year.

Andreas Schleicher, head of OECD's indicators and analysis division, emphasized that comparisons to other nations were unfair as UK students had access to generous government-backed loans, which is "far different from Korea and the US."

But he acknowledged that loan repayment is perceived as a "difficult psychological barrier" for poor students.

He added: "In the US, one of the issues is cost. The cost for higher education has risen dramatically. It is very difficult for people to afford," adding that the UK system is relatively strong considering public and private money are used for tuition fees.

"But there is a clear risk in there if fees get to a level that's unmanageable, if you free things up entirely - and universities may well want to charge fees a lot higher than £9,000 - then you can run into problems."

In UK, average students pay the equivalent of almost $5,000 to attend public universities. Average fees for Korean students were $5,315 at public universities and $9,586 at private institutions, while the cost of a degree in the U.S. ranged from $6,312 to $22,852.

However, the data showed that the salary packages for people with a degree was far higher for UK students than in most other countries.

The same study also found that women are dominating the tertiary system, making up the majority of students and graduates in the OECD. The report showed women tend to populate the education, health, welfare, humanities and arts fields, while men were the majority in engineering, manufacturing and construction fields.

Top 10 Most Expensive Tuition Fees

1. United States

2. Korea

3. UK

4. Japan

5. Australia

6. Canada

7. New Zealand

8. Netherlands

9. Portugal

10. Italy