Innovations in Financing Higher Education in Slovakia

In the developed countries, higher education has been in continuous flux for decades, and the speed of change has accelerated in recent years. Increases in student numbers, observed in many developed countries in the 1990s and 2000s have created unprecedented demand for higher education, but also unprecedented pressures on the institutions themselves and the public purse that traditionally financed most of the cost in all but few OECD countries. As higher education and its costs grew, so too did concerns about its efficiency and outcomes. The general tendency in post-industrial societies to emphasise individual needs and client orientation in public services also contributed to the changing environment of higher education financing and organisation.