Financing Tertiary Education in Nigeria: Strategic Tool for National Development

Abstract

Tertiary education is a major instrument for promoting the socio-economic, political and culture development of any nation. This is so, because a nation’s growth and development are determined by its human resources. Tertiary education provides the much-needed manpower to accelerate the growth and development of the economy. In view of the foregoing, this study examined financing tertiary education in Nigeria: a strategic tool for national development. To achieve this the paper presents a holistic trend of budgetary activities in Nigeria with a particular focus in the allocation to the education sector using times series approach from 2009-2018 and 2019-2023 as well as a comparative analysis on funding of education between Nigeria and the other African countries were examined. The challenges of funding, possible options of financing and implications of financing tertiary institutions were also examined. The study recommends that amongst others that higher institutions funding in Nigeria should not be through government budgetary provision alone, rather, the higher institutions should be innovative in sourcing for funds. They should be more enterprise oriented.