Lithuania has 15 public universities. For a country of just above 3 million people it is a bold luxury. It does not mean that IRII is against the higher education and maximum accessibility thereof. It means that we have difficulties to comprehend why 15 small universities are necessary, instead of two or three strong and independent national universities. 15 different organizations also mean 15 different organizational structures and cultures, 15x overhead costs, lack of economy of scale, and to “spice things up” some unjustified ambitions, which jeopardize the modernization of the whole higher education system.

Universities in Lithuania are dependants. Dependents of the politicians and bureaucrats, which oversee the academic curricula, decide on the disposal of the university property and spare university budgets. Thus, Lithuanian universities are not masters of the two pillars of the university system – their own education programs (i.e. their principal wares), as well as their property and finances.

All education programs have to be approved by the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Education – a lengthy and misguided process, instead of allowing the universities to truly compete and adjust to the market demand. We believe that the market and the goodwill of the university are per se able to ensure the quality of academic programs. Such freedom would also allow flexible rotation and adjustment of academic programs (which is (not always for good) happening informally anyway). All these benefits, however, may be achieved only at the truly independent universities, as outlined below.

The Lithuanian universities are beggars, having no own property. All property of the university is owned by the state, and the university can only try to influence the due disposal of such property – a rocky and non-gratifying path. Moreover, each year the universities beg for the share of the higher education financing pie from the state budget, which is distributed based on the volume of students and other obscure criteria.

Bureaucrats suggest that universities are not efficient in handling their property, as an example - universities even cannot raise any money from the intellectual property (which the universities formally own under the Lithuanian law). To be blunt – such talk rather suggests the lack of elementary understanding of market economic, as opposed to the due handling of state property. The intellectual property (IP) comes as a good example. IP (even if it is owned by the university) cannot be obtained (registered), properly maintained, commercialized (licensed) and enforced without major financial investment.  So how the university shall handle the IP, if it cannot independently take the operational decisions on the spending on IP or procure the infrastructure necessary for the commercialization of IP? The current system encourages private parties (including university researchers) just take advantage of the intellectual property developed by the university without any benefit to the university (the university has no means to enforce their rights anyway).

Bureaucrats/politicians also fear that if the universities become true masters of their own property/finances, they will just be looted by the academia. IRII considers that even if this happens, this may be a painful, albeit a better end for the current higher education system in Lithuania, as opposed to the current vegetative dependant state. The real fear of the bureaucrats/politicians here must be the (in)ability of legal system to prevent looting of state property – a shocking and difficult to admit revelation for the EU country, as well as a gross demonstration of a social mistrust – a separate missing ingredient of the knowledge economy (which we will deal with some time later).

Public universities in most western countries are masters of their own. To be precise – the academic offerings are usually handled at a faculty/college level, while the money/assets are handled by trustees/fund of the university, a board of the publicly trusted individuals, who themselves (directly or through their companies) often are substantial donors of the university. Moreover universities manage to survive and even prosper with the state contributing below ½ of the annual university budget. Remainder is raised through alumni, private party support and tuition fees. Moreover most of the public funds follow the peer recognized academia and brightest students (making universities compete for both), rather than the plain volume of students.

Such system introduces the healthy competition, allows efficiency, as well as account of the opportunity cost (the cost most often neglected in the current Lithuanian university system). It would also cause the sub-par and minor public universities to close down or merge – an indispensable necessity in order to optimize public spending on higher education.

Why this approach is hated and cursed by the incumbents? The fear, the greed and the comfort of the current system (for the incumbents, but not for the society at large) seem to be the appropriate suspects.