An analysis of foreign students’ expenses while studying at universities: Interstate comparison

Abstract

Theoretical background: The focus of this article is to study and compare the indicators that are implemented to evaluate the quality of the educational activities of universities in Poland, Germany and Ukraine. The investigation is exercised, in particular, by the proposed indicator of comparing the annual students’ costs during their studies for a bachelor’s degree with the average annual incomes of these services for consumers in related countries. Because of the differences in remuneration across the regions of each country, the authors used statistical data from these regions. Regarding average annual incomes, the authors used the average wage level in the provinces of Poland, the federal lands of Germany, and the regions of Ukraine.

Purpose of the article: The research objective of the article is a substantiation of methodological and applied recommendations for interstate comparisons of foreign students’ expenses while studying at universities based on the experience of Poland, Germany and Ukraine. The object of this paper is the analysis of annual costs of a foreign student while studying at domestic and foreign universities.

Research methods: During the research, the following methods were used: the dialectical method and methods of analysis and synthesis – to study the features of the comparison of educational activities of domestic and foreign universities, the characteristics to compare the costs of the training period within universities of different countries; statistical method – to analyse the average annual wage and the costs of international students during the training period at universities in Poland, Germany and Ukraine; structural and logical analysis – to develop theoretical and methodological principles to determine the indicator for "the ratio of the student’s annual expenses while studying at the university to the average wage in the region".

Main findings: The ratio of the annual costs of students during the studying period and average annual wages allows different categories of stakeholders to determine the real level of expenses. For applicants, primarily Ukrainians, such an indicator will allow them to navigate, not only the absolute amount of annual expenses, but also the comparison of costs with the remuneration for possible part-time work that is allowed to students in Germany and Poland. Moreover, the part-time work allowed for students correlates to a certain extent with the level of average wages. For university authorities, the proposed indicator may allow a comparison of the competitiveness of their higher education institutions, taking into account the solvency of educational services users. For business circles and local governments (in the provinces of Poland, the federal lands of Germany and regions of Ukraine), this indicator can be useful in assessing the competitiveness of their territories to attract students. Student youth and local residents act as consumers of goods and services, contribute to the development of local business and, thus, can be a source of filling local budgets.