Public universities in Ghana are financed through a mixed funding model that comprises government subventions, statutory transfers, internally generated funds (IGFs), and limited external resources. In practice, government subventions, channelled mainly through the Ministry of Education, Ghana, are largely absorbed by employee compensation, leaving universities to fund most non-salary recurrent costs such as maintenance, teaching materials, ICT systems, and others through IGFs. Infrastructure support from the Ghana Education Trust Fund is important but episodic and insufficient for routine operations. Consequently, student fees have become a core financing pillar rather than a supplementary revenue source.

This structure is highly vulnerable due to delays in government subventions. When releases are late, universities rely on IGFs to sustain essential operations, effectively transferring short-term fiscal risk from the state to institutions with limited revenue flexibility. These pressures are compounded by inflation, rising utility tariffs, higher instructional costs, and expanding enrolments, all of which have increased the real cost of tertiary education delivery.

The 2025/2026 academic year has further exposed systemic weaknesses. Under the Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2022, fee revisions require parliamentary approval. As approval of the 2025/2026 fee schedules remains pending, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission has directed universities to maintain 2024/2025 fees. While legally sound and protective of students, this freeze erodes the real value of IGFs and constrains universities’ capacity to invest in teaching, learning facilities, and staff expansion. The result is a gradual deterioration in quality, manifesting in overcrowded classrooms, under-resourced laboratories, deferred maintenance, and an increased reliance on part-time lecturers.

These challenges highlight the limitations of Ghana’s continued reliance on wholesale student funding approaches. Broad-based fee relief measures, such as the No Fees Stress policy, have expanded access but do so by spreading limited public resources across the entire student population, including those with the capacity to contribute to their education costs. As a result, institutions are often under-compensated for foregone revenue, weakening their financial position. Even where fee increases are modest, a deliberate shift toward targeted student financing, focused on students from low-income households, persons with disabilities, and enrolments in high-cost but strategically important programmes, would enhance both equity and efficiency while shielding vulnerable groups from additional financial burden. Such a transition would also strengthen IGFs, enabling public universities to sustain core operations and quality delivery, particularly during periods of delayed government subventions. Aligning timely public funding, predictable fee regulation, and targeted student support is therefore critical to maintaining a resilient and high-quality tertiary education system in Ghana.

By Peter Anti Partey, PhD (IFEST_Ghana)