Re-Thinking and an In-Depth Exploration of Alternative Sources of Funding Higher Education in Nigeria

Victor F. Peretomode; Favour O. Atubi; Anthonia N. Obed-Chukwuka

Victor F. Peretomode
Favour O. Atubi
Anthonia N. Obed-Chukwuka

Keywords: alternative sources of funding, alumni associations, cost sharing, crowdfunding, higher education, international students

Abstract

Nigeria currently has 274 universities comprising 62 federal, 64 state, and 118 private universities that accommodate only approximately 10 percent of the total admitted university student population of less than 700,000 in a year. These universities are funded and controlled principally by their proprietors. The public universities are funded by the federal or state governments, and those private ones are funded by their proprietors. One common denominator among these institutions is inadequate funding by their owners and the reliance on these sources for funding university activities. This paucity of funds has also adversely affected provision of infrastructure, teaching and learning facilities, research, staff development, essential travels, broadband internet services, quality staffing, the quality of education, accessibility, and the products of these higher educational institutions. The operations of universities are capital intensive and their sustainability cannot be dependent on proprietors funding alone. It is, therefore, imperative that managers of universities must have to diversify their sources of funding taking a clue from their successful counterparts overseas. This paper, therefore, did a re-think and made an in-depth exploration of ten alternative sources of funding which Nigerian universities can draw from to generate adequate revenue to compliment proprietors’ funding in order to address the funding challenges. This will enable them to work to achieve excellence in teaching, research and innovations, extension services and contribute meaningfully to the socio-economic development of the nation. This analytical paper is based on several years of university teaching and research, extensive review of the relevant scholarly literature, and secondary data from the Times Higher Education (THE), US Newsweek, data bases of world statistics, and official government documents and data sources in Nigeria.

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