Higher education funding : a decade of changes

The authors, two french specialists on the financing of higher education, reflect on the conclusions they drew in an article, "Rethinking the financing of post-compulsory education", which they published in this review ten years ago. As they foresaw, higher education funding became increasingly based on mixed sources with students being required to pay a greater share of the costs of their education. But mechanisms to make cost sharing increasingly equitable have been refined. At the same time, the determination of actual costs per institution, per course programme, and even per course has become increasingly accurate, and funding is increasingly taking into account the verdict of performance indicators of various kinds. The funding of research is being increasingly differentiated from funding for teaching/learning. Across the board, higher education institutions have had to do more for less.