Until now, funding for state universities has been allocated on the basis of budget seats, but in future it will be allocated on the basis of the number of graduates. Universities themselves will decide how many students to admit to fully-funded, fee-paying, and co-paying study seats.
They will also be able to make decisions based on program size, costs, and demand. The state will only require universities to train a certain number of specialists in sectors of national importance, such as STEM fields.
"Higher education and science is one of the key drivers of the economy. The new model of financing higher education institutions will more precisely and purposefully ensure that higher education institutions prepare specialists necessary for the growth of the economy," said the Minister of Education and Science Anda Čakša (New Unity).
Presenting the new model to journalists on Tuesday, Jānis Paiders, Director of the Higher Education, Science and Innovation Department at the Ministry of Education, pointed out that the current funding model is outdated and exhausted:
"It [the current funding model] is from the early 2000s. Those were the days when there was a very different competition in higher education, a different demographic. We see that one of the obstacles to progress in higher education is a model that is focused on filling places rather than producing qualified graduates."
State funding for universities currently stands at €150 million, of which only €6.5 million is so-called "performance funding". This is set to change radically in the future.
For the time being, however, the ministry will only start a trial run of the new institutional funding, assessing in the near future which universities are ready to use it, as well as arranging the necessary legislation that would apply to all state universities, possibly from 2026.
The pilot is expected to cost more than €3 million this year, but the results will only be evaluated after three or four years. However, it is not yet known which universities will take part in the pilot project.
