Higher Education Financing: a Comparison Romania and United Kingdom

The present paper is motivated by the importance of financing for the higher education sector. The formulae based financing Romanian higher education system has been inspired from the British financing system. In this context the paper makes a comparison between the higher education financing system in Romania with the one from United Kingdom. Similarities and differences are identified and potential consequences for the sector. The paper concludes that at present at international level, public money is not enough to support higher education and that it is a necessity to encourage HEIs to attract also private funds. Based on the results of a country with a long experience in using the formulae based funding mechanism and the results of a country that recently started to use this funding mechanism, coupled with the fact that both countries use additional funding sources and mechanisms, we can conclude that at present formulae based funding mechanisms are suitable systems to allocate public funds. At the same time they have to be used together with other mechanisms to attract funds from both public and private sources in order to ensure a good financing of the higher education sector.