Introduction

The funding of higher education faces a rather paradoxical challenge. On the one hand, universities are increasingly seen as the foundations of national prosperity and competitiveness, on the other hand, public funding of universities has declined in most developed market economies, as a number of the contributions to this book document. Thus, as government financial support for higher education has declined in Europe, Japan, and the United States, universities in these countries and elsewhere have been forced to turn to other sources of funding such as higher tuition fees, research cooperation with the business sector, and philanthropy to make up the difference. This book provides comparisons across a number of countries of how universities are adjusting to these new circumstances. What is clear from these comparisons is that who pays for the output of universities, whether it is education and degrees or research findings, how the amount of their payment is determined and how the funds actually reach the recipient universities is critical to how the higher education system functions.