Trends of Financing Higher Education in Uzbekistan

Abstract

This paper suggests investigating the financing of higher education in Uzbekistan and its trends in the last years. Most expenses of higher education are covered by public funds, and although the share of public expenditure in GDP is higher than other countries, enrolment is still not in high rate. In general, government can afford to subsidize mass higher education because of Uzbekistan choice for socially oriented market economy. 20 percent of students can get public budget scholarship if their scores are on top of the list in entrance exams. For a long time tuition fees have been introduced and its share in financing higher education is rising year by year. In turn, the amount of monthly scholarships, tuition fee and number of student influence on public expenditure insignificantly. Tuition fees might be paid by three main sources. Students pay their tuition using education loan that is given by commercial banks, however the loan has higher interest rate than assumed. Predominantly, parents share in the payment of tuition fee has highest role among the sources, in this case the income of parents is exempt from income tax. Obviously, private sources for financing higher education are needed to develop, as most EU countries can afford to use taxpayer's resources less and less. Even though EU countries public expenditure is higher share than private, states support students with financial aids under low interest rate.