대학의 위기 극복을 위한 대학재정 확충 방안

Abstract

Two major issues can be pointed out in the direction of education finance policy in the new government. First, the current scale of education finance is sufficient enough that the decrease in the school-age population is the determining factor for reducing education finance? Second, the government's strategy to invest higher education is sufficient to secure an appropriate level of funding for higher education?. The purpose of this study was to analyze two issues based on empirical data and to propose policy suggestions to expand higher education finances to overcome the structural crisis of it. As a result of the analysis, 10 reasons for not reducing education finance even if the number of students decrease; 3 reasons related to the country's educational outlook and philosophy, 5 reasons for structural problems of weak education finance, and 2 reasons for the additional budge for the future education were identified. And the structural crisis in higher education system related to university finance were analyzed as followings: First, phenomenon of hollowing out local universities due to the mismatch between supply and demand for university education, the crisis situation that emerged from the weak university financial structure, the crisis of polarization in university education due to the increase in the burden of college tuition, and the size of the university budget, which is far short of economies of scale, was presented; Second, as a result of estimating the minimum university financial demand based on the national economic size and the OECD average, the additional support for higher education currently planned by the new government was very insufficient. Finally, this study suggested several policy alternatives based on the empirical evidences; enactment of Higher Education Finance Grant Law for securing it by 1% of GDP, Special Accounting Act for Balanced University Development, Special Act on Support for Higher and Vocational Lifelong Education, the Education Finance Grant Law to secure finances in line with GDP growth rate, and enactment of the High Education Tax.