Efficiency and Quality in Higher Education: A Dynamic Analysis

Abstract

During the last decades, these systems passed from elitism to mass given the democratization
of the access to higher education. Considering the strong budgetary constraint, higher
education institutions are obliged to operate with more efficiency affecting the quality of the
offered service. In this work, we propose a dynamic analysis of the efficiency-quality
relationship in higher education with the construction of indicators through non-parametric
method, Data Envelopment Analysis, and demonstrate a possible dilemma between these
characteristics using Malmquist Index.
This technique facilitates the aggregation and weighting of the data used in the construction
of the indicator allowing to respect the higher education characteristics of every country. It
uses linear programming tools and defines a best practice frontier that serves as a benchmark
for estimating the performance of a given set of units. Performance is represented by the
distance to the best practice frontier and weights for partial indicators are endogenously
calculated in such a way that the distance is minimized for every unit.
For the Quality assessment, we use a variant of DEA model: the radial model without inputs.
This approach, traditionally interpreted like a “Helmsman”, is supposed to be able to direct
all the partial indicators towards their maximum values.
The results show that the countries which severe admission policy are able to manage the
quality as well as the quantity of the entrants and, consequently, maintain the quality of the
offered service considering the budgetary restriction.