ABSTRACT
There has been continuously declining budgetary allocations to higher education in most countries in the midst of increasing demand and awareness of its important contributions to global competitiveness, economic growth and sustainable development. This new trend has remained a contending challenge to educational planners and development economists to develop sustainable strategies and techniques for the financing of higher education. This forms the basis for this paper, which attempts to identify measures of ensuring that existing funds to higher educational institutions in Nigeria are efficiently managed and alternative sources not previously explored and tapped are identified, through stock taking of the existing researches on the financial management and sources of education funding in Sub-Saharan Africa, South African countries like Botswana, South Africa; Europe, Asia, and the United States of America. In particular, the paper suggests, based on empirical evidences, and among other things, the need to adopt a market oriented model of Higher educational provision and funding that relies heavily on student and family contributions with different and varied aids models to support students to pay the cost of education, thereby helping to attain Africana December 2010 equity and maximum participation, which are the most promising directions for the development of higher education worldwide.
