The economics of universities in a new age of funding options

The environment in which universities in the United States and some other countries operate has been changing, creating discussion of privatization of public universities. This paper examines the implications for US universities of greater access to royalties for federally funded, private-goods research, and reduced government grants or transfers to support public-goods research. Conditions under which increased private-goods research for out-of-state firms (developing patents and private market applications) leads to higher tuition and reductions in instruction and basic research are developed. The likely outcome is greater privatization of public universities, which may lead to a new public–private structure for what have been the leading US public research universities.