Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives

Linking higher education finance and policy, referred to as strategic financing, is increasing in popularity throughout Central Europe and the Baltic Countries. Strategic financing essentially implies that public funding mechanisms are informed by...

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Main Author: World Bank Group
Format: Policy Note
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/181401488909519414/Investing-strategically-in-higher-education-aligning-public-funding-with-policy-objectives
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26314
id okr-10986-26314
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-263142021-05-25T08:58:23Z Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives World Bank Group TERTIARY EDUCATION EDUCATION FINANCE POLICY OBJECTIVES PUBLIC FINANCE LABOR MARKET JOB SKILLS TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER EQUITY Linking higher education finance and policy, referred to as strategic financing, is increasing in popularity throughout Central Europe and the Baltic Countries. Strategic financing essentially implies that public funding mechanisms are informed by and aligned with specific higher education policy objectives. Governments are asking how the funding strategy can be more supportive of policy objectives. Can funding formulae, for instance, be modified strategically to help realize certain policy objectives? If a government is seeking to enroll more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students, for example, could allocating a premium to higher education institutions (HEIs) per STEM student help achieve the policy objective? Like many countries around the work, Central European and Baltic countries are exploring how different financing modalities can provide additional leverage in steering their higher education sector towards specific policy objectives. In recent years, many Central European and Baltic countries are facing common economic, socio-political, and demographic factors. These common challenges can broadly be categorized into three main themes: challenging economic environment; increasing European integration; and declining demographic trends. First, the region still faces fiscal constraints as it emerges from the global economic slowdown. Such economic trends have placed downward pressure on public higher education budgets and increased the call for collaboration between higher education and the labor market. Second, national higher education policies across Central Europe and the Baltic countries are impacted by a broader European policy environment, including the European Higher Education Area. Supranational initiatives, such as the EU’s Education and Training 2020 Strategy, Horizon 2020, and its Modernization Agenda for Higher Education, as well as the intergovernmental Bologna Process strongly influence national higher education policies. Third, a declining population in Europe is shrinking the number of working- and student-age people. After decades of growth in the higher education sector, the number of new students participating in higher education is slowly declining. 2017-03-29T21:58:22Z 2017-03-29T21:58:22Z 2016-06 Policy Note http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/181401488909519414/Investing-strategically-in-higher-education-aligning-public-funding-with-policy-objectives http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26314 English en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Policy Notes Europe and Central Asia Eastern Europe
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic TERTIARY EDUCATION
EDUCATION FINANCE
POLICY OBJECTIVES
PUBLIC FINANCE
LABOR MARKET
JOB SKILLS
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
EQUITY
spellingShingle TERTIARY EDUCATION
EDUCATION FINANCE
POLICY OBJECTIVES
PUBLIC FINANCE
LABOR MARKET
JOB SKILLS
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
EQUITY
World Bank Group
Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives
geographic_facet Europe and Central Asia
Eastern Europe
description Linking higher education finance and policy, referred to as strategic financing, is increasing in popularity throughout Central Europe and the Baltic Countries. Strategic financing essentially implies that public funding mechanisms are informed by and aligned with specific higher education policy objectives. Governments are asking how the funding strategy can be more supportive of policy objectives. Can funding formulae, for instance, be modified strategically to help realize certain policy objectives? If a government is seeking to enroll more science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students, for example, could allocating a premium to higher education institutions (HEIs) per STEM student help achieve the policy objective? Like many countries around the work, Central European and Baltic countries are exploring how different financing modalities can provide additional leverage in steering their higher education sector towards specific policy objectives. In recent years, many Central European and Baltic countries are facing common economic, socio-political, and demographic factors. These common challenges can broadly be categorized into three main themes: challenging economic environment; increasing European integration; and declining demographic trends. First, the region still faces fiscal constraints as it emerges from the global economic slowdown. Such economic trends have placed downward pressure on public higher education budgets and increased the call for collaboration between higher education and the labor market. Second, national higher education policies across Central Europe and the Baltic countries are impacted by a broader European policy environment, including the European Higher Education Area. Supranational initiatives, such as the EU’s Education and Training 2020 Strategy, Horizon 2020, and its Modernization Agenda for Higher Education, as well as the intergovernmental Bologna Process strongly influence national higher education policies. Third, a declining population in Europe is shrinking the number of working- and student-age people. After decades of growth in the higher education sector, the number of new students participating in higher education is slowly declining.
format Policy Note
author World Bank Group
author_facet World Bank Group
author_sort World Bank Group
title Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives
title_short Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives
title_full Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives
title_fullStr Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives
title_full_unstemmed Investing Strategically in Higher Education : Aligning Public Funding with Policy Objectives
title_sort investing strategically in higher education : aligning public funding with policy objectives
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2017
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/181401488909519414/Investing-strategically-in-higher-education-aligning-public-funding-with-policy-objectives
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26314
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