The Crisis in Funding Higher Education - an international perspective

This seminar examines the ongoing crisis in higher education funding in Ireland and internationally. Focusing on declining public investment and growing reliance on private funding, Professor Gwilym Croucher will explore recent policy developments in Australia and wider trends across English-speaking higher education systems, with a response from Professor Ellen Hazelkorn on the Irish context.

21 May 2026

The Crisis in Funding Higher Education - an international perspective

Thursday 28^th May 4.30-6pm

TRISS Seminar Room, Arts Building

Hosted by the Cultures, Academic Values in Education Research Centre

Talk by Professor Gwilym Croucher

Deputy Director, Centre for the Study of Higher Education

University of Melbourne

Respondent:

Prof Ellen Hazelkorn, Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates & Professor Emeritus, Technological University Dublin.

Higher education in many developed countries, including Ireland, has seen a significant decline in public investment in the early twenty-first century and a growing trend towards increased student fees, allied to greater philanthropic and/or private funding of higher education institutions. A sharp decline in public investment in Irish higher education is one of the aftershocks of the economic crash but the resulting funding gap has never been addressed in a coherent or consistent way, despite multiple official reports highlighting the scale of underfunding of higher education (Cassells, 2016) and a pervasive rhetoric around the importance of higher education in serving the knowledge based economy.

The seminar encompasses both the endemic crisis in public funding for higher education in Ireland and wider international comparisons drawn from other English speaking HE systems. Our guest speaker, Prof Gwilym Croucher (University of Melbourne) will explore the funding of higher education from an international dimension, considering the impact of recent policy developments in Australia.