Determinants of the Changing Funding Burden of Higher Education

Authors

Matthew van den Berg, University of Nebraska at KearneyFollow

Keywords

education economics, education finance

Abstract

This paper analyses the political economy of public higher education funding in the United States and offers a unique conceptual and empirical approach to describe the determinants of funding sources. By evaluating the tuition proportion of revenue, this analysis estimates the determinants of the relative distribution of the funding burden between public and private sources. The empirical results show inelastic substitution between government appropriations and tuition revenue, significant demand effects on tuition revenue, and that institutional differences contribute to varying dependence on tuition as a source of revenue. The estimated determinants identify several areas where state and university policies may directly affect the relative burden of higher education costs.

Recommended Citation

van den Berg, M. (2021). Determinants of the Changing Funding Burden of Higher Education. Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Technology, 22(1). Retrieved from https://openspaces.unk.edu/mpjbt/vol22/iss1/7