Funding Higher Education as a Strategic Good of a Nation
يناير 01, 2023
DOI:
Publisher: Inderscience
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. As well, we 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. 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. As well, the UAE government is providing funding to almost half of the students who choose to attend other tuition-based colleges and universities.