AN EVALUATION OF NEW FUNDING MECHANISMS IN BRITISH HIGHER EDUCATION: SOME MICRO‐ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Abstract

This paper summarizes some results of a programme of study of recent and proposed changes in the methods of funding higher education in the United Kingdom and in a number of other OECD countries. It considers the advantages and disadvantages for institutional efficiency of alternative models of funding, the extent of changes in the patterns of finance, and the management and academic responses of the institutions affected by these changes, and in doing so, it examines a set of higher education establishments in transition from an elite university led system towards the much more varied array of institutions and activities that constitute mass higher education.

* This study relies heavily, although far from exclusively, on evidence from twenty‐four institutions of higher education which the author visited for two or more days during the period: January to April 1989. They include fourteen universities, eight polytechnics, and two other PCFC colleges. It was sponsored by the Department of Education and Science of the United Kingdom, and the author is grateful for the help and advice of the steering committee appointed by the DES. However, the author alone is responsible for the contents of this article. The full results are being published in Williams, G.L., Changing Patterns of Finance in Higher Education. (Open University Press), 1992. The OECD study was based mainly on twelve country case studies prepared for the OECD and published by the OECD as Financing Higher Education: Current Patterns, 1990.

Notes

* This study relies heavily, although far from exclusively, on evidence from twenty‐four institutions of higher education which the author visited for two or more days during the period: January to April 1989. They include fourteen universities, eight polytechnics, and two other PCFC colleges. It was sponsored by the Department of Education and Science of the United Kingdom, and the author is grateful for the help and advice of the steering committee appointed by the DES. However, the author alone is responsible for the contents of this article. The full results are being published in Williams, G.L., Changing Patterns of Finance in Higher Education. (Open University Press), 1992. The OECD study was based mainly on twelve country case studies prepared for the OECD and published by the OECD as Financing Higher Education: Current Patterns, 1990.