Current Trends in Financing Higher Education – European, North American, and Australian Higher Education Financing Changes and Challenges Overview

Modern world and globalization is strongly influencing rapid changes in society development. Developed societies have set new standards and expectations of higher education; however, costs of higher education are growing way faster than inflation. Post-secondary education has grown more than double in the last two decades. The changes in economy - rising costs in economy, inflation rate growth, growing cost of capital, and changes in GDP, are closely connected to the rising prices as well as growing costs of tuition fees in higher education. Costs of higher education have also more than doubled in the last two decades. As the above mentioned changes appear, often they are followed by developing trends of financing – in this case, new trends in financing education. This paper is showing an overview and comparison in financing trends in higher education in three continents used as world benchmarks in education business development - Europe, North America, and Australia. All three continents have a different history on education development, as well as different views on business development, so this paper will represent a real overview of the most common education societies in the world.