State regulation of higher education institutions by sector

As mentioned in a previous blog post, every higher education institution in Austria is clearly assigned to one of four sectors: there are universities of applied sciences, public universities, teacher training colleges (some private, some public), and private universities and colleges (Table 1). Each of these sectors is regulated by its own law: the University Act 2002 (for public universities), the University of Applied Sciences Act, the Higher Education Act 2005 (on the organization of teacher training colleges) and the Private Higher Education Act. There are also some cross-sector regulations, such as the Research Organization Act (FOG) and the Higher Education Quality Assurance Act. The strategic management of this differentiated higher education system is carried out via the Higher Education Plan 2030, which is referred to as “umbrella strategy.” In addition, each of the three sectors directly are under state supervision and also have their own strategy document in the form of multi-year development plans.

The public university sector is the largest, which is apparent from the fact that around 72% of all students study here. 16% of students attend universities of applied sciences, while private universities and teacher training colleges each account for 6% of the total. Regardless of this distribution, however, the legally defined division allows for a sectoral comparison in four dimensions of state regulation, which are borrowed from the EUA’s “University Autonomy Scorecard”: organizational characteristics as defined in the respective legal acts (Table 2); the financing of higher education institutions (Table 3); the regulations governing human resources management at higher education institutions (Table 4); and the framework conditions for the organization of studies by sector (Table 5). Let’s take a closer look at the results.

Table 2 shows, that the legal requirements stipulate that universities of applied sciences and private universities must be organized under private law. Public universities are legally defined as legal entities under public law. Teacher training colleges are federal institutions. The internal governance structure varies from sector to sector, but with the exception of teacher training colleges, they are all variations of “New Public Management”: university management (e.g., rectorate, executive board) is given a central position, usually supported by a kind of supervisory board. In some sectors, collegial bodies (e.g., senate) are also established, especially for the teaching organisation. In the case of public universities, the interface with the state is set in the form of three-year performance agreements (in addition to which there are further reporting obligations for each sector).

The financing of higher education organisations varies from sector to sector, as depicted in Table 3. By far the largest budget, amounting to more than €5 billion, is allocated to public universities; the sectors involving universities of applied sciences and private universities receive less than half a billion euros per year. The significantly higher volume allocated to public universities can be explained not only by the high proportion of students, but also by the fact that they are funded for their research activities, whereas universities of applied sciences are primarily funded for their teaching activities.

Each sector has its own legal framework for human resources management (see Table 4). Universities of applied sciences, public and private universities offer employment under private law (ASVG); at the teacher training colleges, which are federal institutions, employees are civil servants or contract employees of the federal government. Public and private universities each have their own collective wage agreement; however, there is no such agreement for universities of applied sciences. The number of employees (in FTE) varies from sector to sector: with more than 26,000 academic employees, public universities are by far the largest.

Regarding the range of study programs (see Table 5), public universities offer the largest number of programs and cover the widest variety of subjects. Universities of applied sciences provide practice-oriented degree programs that include at least one mandatory internship semester. Teacher education colleges are responsible for teacher training and offer bachelor’s and master’s programs for the primary and secondary education levels, with secondary level teacher training is conducted in cooperation with public universities. Private universities are usually specialized in only a few fields of study. Only public and private universities are authorized to award doctoral degrees.

In summary, each law specified for control purposes has a normative effect on individual higher education institutions in each of the four dimensions. In contrast, there are only a few intersectional norms. Even the overarching control is only understood as an umbrella strategy. This means that higher education institutions are anchored in their respective sectors and are also subject to their own control logic: the Austrian higher education system can be described as highly compartmentalized. Finally, however, it should be noted that focusing exclusively on sectoral differences runs the risk of overlooking further distinguishing features between higher education institutions within a sector. In view of the considerable difference in size between public universities and the other three sectors, an upcoming article will address primarily the country’s 23 public universities.