Higher Education Funding Innovation and Planning

Higher Education Funding Innovation and Planning

Introduction

Economic facets of knowledge have become significantly essential in an age of globalization and global antagonism. Countries social and economic prosperity depends upon educated and highly skilled community. Universities produce self skilled and educated graduates that serve as a resource for the country and contribute to the economy. Higher education has undergone a lot of changes in the recent years, but with that the funding on education per student has decreased to half. The performance gaps in the universities have grown partially because of the low funding in the field of education. In the developing countries like US, UK and Australia strategies and reforms are formulated for innovation funding in higher education. Innovative funding could help enhance the education system and overcome the challenges the universities are facing in providing good education to its students.

Discussion

Funds Deficit

Higher education is the largest flexible point in country's funds. The state funding rises for higher education tends to rise when the economy and generated revenues are good while at the period of recession it tends to drop. During the period of recession, US cut down the funding given to the higher education as a result of which the state money per student dropped subsequently (Zusman, n.d, p.2). Just in 2004, the amount per student dropped down to $ 12. The state funding outlines varied extensively 23 states paid less money in 2004 than in 2003 to the education sector without considering the rise and growth in the enrollment of the students in the universities. Nine states were reported to cut 5% or more in funding (Zusman, n.d, p.2).

Challenges faced by universities

The global economy due to the recession and other factors is facing lot challenges, which has affected the higher education system of the country. There are many challenges that the universities today faces due to the shortage of funding. The universities including the students suffer a number of pressing challenges (Deloitte, 2009, p.7). These challenges are as follows:

Increasing costs

Reducing Academic Fees

Budget management

Identity Access management

Innovative Approach E-Book Conversion

The above mentioned challenges have contributed significantly to the financial pressure that is faced by many universities, especially those that are not ready to expand.

The higher education authority objective is to provide maximum education values and knowledge to the students while maximizing the use and availability of resources that are becoming scarce due to the previously mentioned challenges. Conversion of books to E books has been proposed by the authorities to promote and enhance the availability of this resource readily to students with minimum exertion on the financial pressure. The concept of E book course has been designed to provide a way to solve the funding issues in the university.

Understanding E books

E books do not occupy any shelf spaces or needs to be purchased. They are readily available for teachers and students. These E books are easy to download and are zipped-up websites. These websites use CSS and HTML to format the content. In US, the e ...