Funding higher education as a strategic good of a nation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose that higher education should be seen as a strategic good of nations. We argue that higher education is neither a private, nor a public good, and that its facilitation by governments, and its attainment of citizens is critically required for the wellbeing of a nation. We also use the partnership funding model of higher education as a framework to facilitate the strategic investment in higher education by economically capable governments. We used enrollment and funding data from Al Ain University, UAE as a case to examine the percentage of students who were able to secure government funding to pay their tuition fees. The result from this paper shows that higher education is considered as a strategic good in the UAE, and that all willing and able citizens can benefit from the availability of tuition free higher education at three publicly-funded academic institutions. In addition, the UAE Government is providing funding to almost half of the students who choose to attend other tuition-based colleges and universities.