Game Theory and Financial Components for Determining the Budget Places Optimal Distribution in the Higher Education System of Ukraine

Abstract

The complexity and interdependence of management and decision-making problems in the system of higher education require new ideas and approaches, which necessitates the search for new management solutions using modern approaches and methods of economic and mathematical modeling. The article is devoted to the problem of optimal allocation of budget places for higher education institutions by specialty. The conducted research shows that the priorities of the state, labor market and consumers do not coincide. In this situation, the university, as a provider of educational services, must balance the demand of the consumer (applicants, students and their parents) with the offers of the customer (the state, entrepreneurs, the labor market), taking into account the forecast of demand in the labor market. The purpose of the study is to determine the optimal allocation of budget places for higher education institutions considering financial constituents, system analysis and the game theory method. A solution to the problem is offered by building an economic-mathematical model using game theory techniques and methods of analyzing hierarchies, which have a powerful apparatus for considering many different models, approaches and concepts for solving the same problem. The presented mathematical model allows to obtain a balanced optimal distribution of budget places by university specialties, which harmonizes the demands of applicants and employers. The budgetary expenditures for higher education are an effective regulator of direct action on the training of specialists with higher education and an instrument of state regulation of the number of state-ordered students. Based on the results of the study, the model of distribution of the institution's budget expenditures for decision-making management is proposed, which allows redistributing funds to expenditure items that are included in the development expenditures of higher education institutions. Further development of the described model in the direction of researching the impact on existing restrictions on the market of educational services will allow offering powerful mechanisms and technologies for managing the process of forming optimal strategies for the development of higher education institutions.