Research Monograph

Higher education plays an important role in the human capital development of a country. Investment in higher education generally rises every year, and sustaining the financing of public institutions involved in higher education is becoming economically burdensome upon the state.While the cost for sustaining higher education is rising, the allotment for it in the government budget is eroding. In light of this, governments around the world, including Malaysia, are exploring measures to financially maintain higher education institutions without shifting the burden of ever-increasing university fees onto students and their families. In 2015, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education launched the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education), which underlined initiatives for Malaysia's higher education. One of the initiatives relates to the long-term financial sustainability of public higher education institutions. The vision and aspiration of the government is to drive Malaysian universities towards becoming financially self-sustaining. Under the University Transformation Programme, the Purple Book on Enhancing University Income Generation, Endowment & Waqf was launched in September 2016. It proposes four key initiatives for universities to enhance their income generation, namely, enhancing commercial activities, endowment, waqf and philanthropic income.