Educational Endowments as a Tool for Financing Higher Education: International Experiences

Abstract

Many higher education institutions in the Arab world suffer from a number of problems. Perhaps
the most important of which is related to the means of providing the necessary financing for
them, especially with the spread of economic policies related to globalization and quarantining
the role of the state in the economy, which is limited to supervising public financial policies. In
order for those educational institutions to confront this problem, they depend on government
support, external borrowing, or raising the price of services provided to students, which has
negatively affected higher education in the Arab world. This study shows the role of educational
endowments in solving the problem of financing higher education institutions in the Arab world,
with reference to some international experiences in this field. The study concludes that
educational endowments can solve the problem of financing higher education institutions in the
Arab world through establishing educational endowments owned by these institutions—the very
idea that many international higher education institutions follow.