Tuition Dependent Institutions Without Subsidies Face Financial Challenges

The In Focus section of the magazine IAU Horizons (Vol. 19 No.3) includes 10 papers focusing on the theme: Student Tuition Fees – perspectives from around the world.
Tuition Dependent Institutions Without Subsidies Face Financial Challenges, by William Patrick Leonard, Vice Dean, SolBridge International School of Business, Woosong University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea (wpatleon@solbridge.ac.kr)
While many national economies show signs of recovery, the Great Recession of 2008 continues to challenge some of their tertiary institutions. In the U.S., two respected financial consultancies, Bain and Company5 and Moody’s Investors Services6 have suggested that as many as a third of U.S. tertiary institutions are financially at risk. These are the tuition dependent institutions (TDI’s). In aggregate, their annual operating budgets are primarily sustained by tuition income.
They are non-elite public and small private institutions. One suspects that similar challenges generalize to other nations where tertiary institutions are faced with significantly lower governmental subsidies and or directives. For example, eight major Greek institutions have indicated that the government’s cost-saving mandated reductions in force prevent their operations. In response to increasing student disquiet, Korean tertiary institutions have been directed to lower tuition.
Read more in the magazine IAU Horizons (Vol. 19 No.3).