ETER Analytical Report: How are European Higher Education Institutions funded?

The way resources are allocated to Higher Education Institutions represents a key dimension of public policies in order to secure responsiveness of higher education to societal needs and in order to ensure an efficient use of resources in a period of tight public budgets. In this respect, public policies are increasingly putting emphasis on the allocation of financial means based on measurable goals and performance criteria, as well as on gaining more resources from students and from private donors.

However, the extent to which this changing policy climate has an impact on the level of composition of resources of individual institutions is largely unknown, also for the lack of reliable micro-data on HEI revenues. This report, based on unique data from the European Tertiary Education Register, provides evidence on the level and composition of revenues for more than 1,300 HEIs in 20 European countries (referring to the year 2015), as well as on changes over the period 2011-2016.