A survey of effective factors on financial resource allocation within Iranian public universities: panel data approach

A major question for higher education financial planners at macro level is the current pattern of financial resource allocation within colleges and what factors effect on interuniversity financial resource allocation. To answer this question، it is necessary to identify the interuniversity resource allocation pattern. The purpose of present research is to survey and determine the factors that have most contribution on colleges financial resource allocation. In other words، the aim is to answer the question of، what factors do universities consider when they want to allocate financial resource to their colleges in financial scarcely years? In this paper، we utilized descriptive-correlation and regression analysis methods with longitudinal-cross data to analysis resource allocation function. The population was all public universities affiliated to the Ministry of Science، Research and Technology. The sample was 15 colleges and 4 research centers in 4 years’ time period (totally 76 cases). The research instrument was the Financial and Educational Data Form. Because of few colleges in sample، we used panel data approach for regression analysis with fixed effect. In these methods، time series data with cross-sectional data are combined. The result showed that “number of faculty per college” have greatest positive effect on amount of financial resource allocation per college. The “number of students in college” had no significant effect on resource allocation function، and showed that financial resource allocation within Iranian public universities is not “per student”.