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Olof Hallonsten. Photo

Olof Hallonsten

Senior lecturer

Olof Hallonsten. Photo

Where did all the money go? Funding, personnel and expenditure in Swedish universities and colleges 2001–21

Author

  • Olof Hallonsten

Summary, in English

Swedish universities and colleges have received a substantial funding increase since the turn of the millennium, as part of continued policies of expanding the admission of students to higher education to broader layers of the population and strengthen Swedish public research and development to increase the competitiveness of the Swedish knowledge-based economy. In this article, publicly available statistics are used to trace how this increase in funding has been used by the sector. Comparing figures on income (base grant for research, third-party funding and base grant for education) with statistics on personnel and student enrolment as well as data on actual expenditure, the article draws some conclusions that are used to discuss some common misunderstandings and erroneous beliefs, including claims of a ‘depletion’ of the base grant for research and an uninhibited growth of the number of administrative staff, which are common themes in the Swedish and international debate over higher education.

Department/s

  • CIRCLE
  • Organizational Studies

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Publication/Series

Quality in Higher Education

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Routledge

Topic

  • Economics and Business
  • Educational Sciences

Keywords

  • administration
  • Funding
  • growth
  • research
  • Sweden
  • universities

Status

Epub

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1353-8322