Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Public and Individual Investment in Polish Higher Education
Wojciech Jarecki

ABSTRACT. The key factor determining economic development is the quality of human capital that citizens have. The main element of this capital is their education. Higher education plays a special role since well-educated people are the driving force behind the economy – they are innovative, active, and able to apply new techniques in a better way and create technologies themselves. The article raises the problem of benefits that accrue from improving education level. Changes in the number of students as well as budget and individual expenditure on higher education were subject to analysis. At first benefits accruing from improvement in educational level were presented on the basis of the literature on the subject. Then the author refers to changes in the total number of people in higher education in Poland compared to other countries as well as the structure of students by fields of study. The last section concerns the financing of higher education in Poland. It presents estimated individual and total expenditure on higher education. Finally, the author calculates the ratio of individual expenditure to total expenditure.

KEYWORDS: higher education, individual and public investment, the expenditure on higher education, Poland.

JEL classification: I21, I23, P2.