Public funding of higher education is an important topic within European governmental agenda, especially in times of budgetary austerity. Thus, given the challenges higher education industry faced in the last decades, the present paper aims at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a few national funding patterns of higher education institutions (HEIs) within the European Union. Using the method of content analysis, the study conducted in Finland, Greece and Romania also reveals the effects the national funding patterns might have on the competition and competitiveness of national HEIs in the European higher education market. The issue of performance funding of HEIs is also addressed. Moreover, the authors argue for the necessity of integrating institutional performance indicators as an important criterion for allocating public resource to HEIs, in order to raise quality, competition and competitiveness of national HEIs on the European market of higher education.
Funding Higher Education in a few EU Countries: Implications for Competition and Competitiveness in Higher Education (703.1 KiB, 2,086 hits)
