Abstract

Abstract The private higher education sector in Egypt is rapidly expanding. The Government of Egypt (GOE) supports its growth by providing legislation and incentives with the main objective of offering high-quality higher education to the growing youth bulge. Private universities react to the successive economic crises by raising their fees in order to maintain the quality of education. In the absence of supporting financial schemes for individual students, the surge in fees perpetuates inequity in access to private higher education for the lower socio-economic strata of the Egyptian society. This paper aims to address a gap in research concerning the diversification of the revenue sources for private universities to support their expansion and the sustainability of education quality with inclusivity. By employing qualitative research tools, mainly semi-structured interviews and an open-coding process, the quality of education, inclusivity and expandability of four universities are examined: the American University in Cairo, Future University in Egypt, an International Branch Campus and El Sewedy University of Technology. Moreover, the paper investigates philanthropy as a revenue source for private universities by studying the case of the American University in Cairo, exploring the possibility of normalizing US higher education philanthropic activities to the Egyptian context. The study also explores the status of philanthropic activities at the other three universities. It concludes that more efforts are required to sustain the private universities quality of education. As for philanthropy, the research shows that sustaining philanthropic activities at universities requires an infrastructure that may not be achievable at these institutions. Therefore, the paper recommends several measures to be spearheaded by the GOE and the banking sector to support the sustainability of the quality of HEIs with inclusivity of talented students, regardless of their socio-economic strata, gender or geographic location.

School

School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

Department

Public Policy & Administration Department

Degree Name

MA in Public Policy

Graduation Date

Fall 2-19-2025

Submission Date

1-28-2025

First Advisor

Ghada Barsoum

Committee Member 1

Mohamed Elkaramany

Committee Member 2

Noura Wahby

Extent

129 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Approval has been obtained for this item

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