The financing of higher education throughout Europe and around the world is faced with three great challenges. The first of these is how to find additional resources needed to improve quality, develop new programs, increase capacity and guarantee stability. The second is how to increase equity of participation in higher education. The third is how to improve the efficiency of use of available resources.

Arrangements regarding both parts of the funding system (funding of educational institutions, state financial support to students) can have a great impact on cost sharing among different bearers, accessibility to higher education and other dimensions related to equity issues, as well as on both internal (such as study) efficiency and external efficiency (such as return to education). Funding, equity and efficiency of higher education are highly interrelated issues.

Throughout Europe, North America, and elsewhere, many partial or complete reforms of funding higher education have been designed to supplement revenue, to achieve fairer cost sharing among different bearers and a greater degree of both equity (in access - by increasing financial assistance for promising students with financial issues, etc.) and efficiency. The key to successful reforms has been a combination of technical design (for example, of student loan programs) with politically strategic steps to include all stakeholders in the reform process.

The main aim of the conference is to discuss the situation, trends and reforms in both parts of the system of funding higher education (funding of educational institutions, state financial support to students) in Europe, particularly in former socialist countries. The impact of the system of funding and policy reforms on cost sharing, equity and efficiency are of special interest to the conference.

The conference will bring together policy makers, university leaders, and scholars to discuss the already great and growing challenges to higher education. The conference has invited higher educational policy experts from the World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies in the Netherlands, the International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project in the United States and from some former socialist countries. Conference participants are expected to contribute to the sharing of new knowledge in order to help better understand the system of funding higher education and its impacts. Discussions among participants will be of special value for all; for policy makers in particular the process will help them successfully implement the required reforms in the system of funding higher education.