Reforming Higher Education Finance in Turkey: The Alumni - Crowdfunded Student Debt Fund “A-CSDF” Model

Abstract

KeywordsThis study presents an innovative and sustainable system for mobilizing Turkish university alumni to contribute to a crowdfunded pool repackaged as a student debt instrument with an elaborate performance tracking tool, various payoff structures and income-contingent repayment schedules. The ultimate aim is to offer a remedy for the conspicuous global shortage of alternative finance sources and various forms of aid to higher education students in the short-term, and, through enabling equitable and egalitarian access to quality higher education, transforming society and enhancing economic development in the longer-term. The model rests upon a six-dimensional framework and its infrastructure is facilitated by a newly emerged form of digitally enhanced financing, "crowdfunding". The research method involves content analysis and data triangulation for validation purposes to determine the sub-themes surrounding the higher education problem in Turkey. The theme-driven keywords are searched for on Turkey's first original social network, Eksi Sozluk, to uncover trends and biases towards student loans, debt repayment and associated concepts. Subsequently, the same keywords are utilized in a Google Trends search volume analysis, and are finally validated by a focus group discussion. The theoretical framework to explain students' attitudes towards borrowing and loan repayment and the motivation behind alumni and charitable giving, rests mainly on behavioral economics. The A-CDSF Model uniquely addresses the higher education finance problem in Turkey and offers an easily implementable original solution for institutions and policy makers.Higher education financing Student debtIncome-contigent debt Crowdfunding Alumni givingArticle Info

The HESFS for higher education funding, employment and sustainability

“…Another feasible financial resource is the usage of an outsourced crowdfunding facility as in the example of the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Colasanti et al , 2018) or a setup similar to the University of Pavia’s civic crowdfunding platform (University of Pavia, 2020). Depending on the level of the HEIs SD maturity process (Vargas et al , 2019), the Civic Crowdfunded SD Fund can be complemented by a separate crowdfunding facility tailored to alumni (Son-Turan, 2016). As a result, more specialized value propositions can be offered that may enhance alumni identification with their alma mater and increase donations.…”

“…The fees that corporate business partners pay annually into the SDWPP and the contributions from the civic (and alumni) crowdfunding platforms are classified as high-possibility funding sources, based on examples from literature (Son-Turan, 2016; Colasanti et al , 2018) and practice (University of Pavia, 2020). Other sources, such as eco-farm revenue, government subsidies, cash inflows through the sale of SLABS in capital markets, fees coming from HEI domains such as SD training, sponsorships and investments are viewed as long-term, and therefore, have been considered lower possibility sources.…”

Aspects Of Financial And Economic Operations Of Primorsky Region Higher Education Institutions

“…These challenges are closely connected between themselves due to the fact that attractiveness of universities for businesses of different levels, domestic and foreign consumers of education services may not only bring goods ranks to the universities in the global rankings, but also promote their rapid transition to self-sufficiency, and, as a result, to their financial sustainability (Wang, 2017). However, higher education institutions nowadays experience significant difficulties in searching additional financial resources (Gansemer-Topf, et al, 2018;Marginson, 2018;Son-Turan, 2016;Palfreyman & Tapper, 2016).…”

Free higher education retention policy of a local college in the Philippines: Insights of disqualified students

“…There are many types of scholarships, such as merit-based, need-based, and diversity-based scholarships (Cain et al, 2018). Merit-based scholarships are awarded based on academic achievement, while need-based scholarships are distributed based on financial need (Son-Turan, 2016). Diversitybased scholarships are designed to promote diversity in educational settings by awarding scholarships to members of traditionally underrepresented groups (Snilstveit et al, 2017).…”