EVALUATION OF FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Financial flexibility affects the ability of higher education institutions (HEIs) to ensure financial stability in conditions of uncertainty and crisis. Financial flexibility results from sound decision-making by university management and requires thorough assessment. This article aims to evaluate the financial flexibility of HEIs based on an integral indicator and the correlation of financial flexibility indicators.
The integral indicator of financial flexibility includes groups of sensitivity, responsiveness, maneuverability, and cost-effectiveness indicators. This indicator is calculated as the average value of these factors. It comprises seventeen indicators, excluding those requiring managerial data for calculation, such as the share of administrative expenses to total income, the share of utility costs to fixed expenses, and a group of indicators responding to the price factor.
The article tests the methodology for assessing the financial flexibility of HEIs based on the integral indicator for classical, polytechnic, pedagogical, and other institutions. To eliminate the scale effect and standardize the calculated HEI indicators to a comparable panel sample, normalization was conducted, and the logarithm of the indicators was calculated to unify the data. The average value of the integral financial flexibility indicator for HEIs from 2018-2022 was determined to be 0.22, relative to the typical group of HEIs (classical – 0.21, polytechnic – 0.23, pedagogical and others – 0.21) and separately by years. Using the «Data Analysis» add-in in Microsoft Excel, the correlation of the indicators with the integral financial flexibility indicator was determined. The results of the correlation analysis showed that the degree of association between indicators of financial flexibility and the integral indicator is insignificant and does not exceed 0.6.