Impact of the recent economic crisis on tertiary education funding - a comparative study

Abstract

We examined how the recent global economic crisis and the necessary cuts in public expenditure affected the funding for tertiary education in European countries. We clustered the countries into two groups with respect to the severity of the impact of the global crisis on their economies. Then, we comparatively studied the changes in the funding of tertiary education during the recent economic crisis. We found that tertiary education was less exposed to austerity measures than the education sector as a whole and, in the group of countries that were more affected by the crisis, several countries decreased the share of public expenditure on tertiary education. We also found that, on average, countries with high pre-crisis public spending on tertiary education increased the share of GDP for tertiary education more than those with low pre-crisis spending. Overall, the results of our research show how the governments of different countries adjusted public funding for tertiary education during the economic crisis.