Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics
Indicators
of the
UAE Higher Education Sector
Finance
2012-06
Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research
United Arab Emirates
November 2012
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research
United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
© Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
CENTER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION DATA AND STATISTICS (CHEDS)
INDICATORS OF THE UAE HIGHER EDUCATION SECTOR
2012
© Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
CHEDS Publication 2012: 06
What is CHEDS?
The Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics (CHEDS), located within the Commission for
Academic Accreditation in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, is the
national body for the collection, analysis and reporting of data on higher education in the UAE.
© 2012 Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
PO Box 45133
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
www.cheds.ae
© Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Financial Information on the UAE HE Sector, October 2012
1. Actual revenues and expenditures
The three federal institutions, 48 among the 59 operational civil CAA-licensed institutions and 2
other institutions submitted complete or partial financial data which consisted of the partition of
the budget of the current year into various types of revenues (tuition fees, donation s, and
internal services) and expenditures (teaching, research, services, and administration) and their
corresponding actual/real figures for the last academic year 2010 -11.
In 2010-11, the total of the submitted actual expenditures is AED6 ,199 million for an enrolment
of 93,275 students out of the total 2010 enrolment of 103 ,070 students (Fig. 1). (A few
institutions were unable, for various reasons, to submit financial data.) This permitted an estimate
of the national average yearly cost per student as AED66,455. On the other hand, the total
submitted revenues are AED6,517 million, relating to an enrolment of 92,816 students. This gives
an estimate of the national average yearly revenue per student as AED68,322.
The annual cost per student is estimated as AED77,883 and AED58,586 for federal and CAA licensed institutions respectively (Fig.2), whereas the yearly revenue per student is estimated as
AED75,148 and AED60,976 respectively. Note that the cost per student varies significantly
between institutions. The annual cost and revenue per student for some CAA-licensed institutions
is significantly higher than the average figures of the federal institutions whereas for others the
figures are around only AED35,000.
2. Budgeted revenues and expenditures
For the academic year 2011-12, the institutions that submitted financial data budgeted an expenditure
amount of AED6,714 million. These budgets show that the institutions expected their expenditures to
increase on average by 6.1% for a real increase in enrolment of 6.2%. The increase is 5.1% for federal
institutions for an increase of 4.9% in the enrolments. The budgeted increase in the expenditures of the
CAA-licensed institutions is 7% for an increase of 6.9 % in the enrolments.
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Table 1 gives the distribution of the budgeted expenditure of the institutions. It shows that 21 institutions
have a relatively small real expenditures budget (less than 20 million dirhams) in 2010-2011, and seven
CAA-licensed institutions had a real expenditure budget larger than 200 million dirhams. Institutions with
a budget less than 20 million dirhams are mainly narrow specialization focused institutions.
T ABLE 1: D ISTRIBUTION OF INSTITUTIONS BASED ON TOTAL EXPENDITURES ( IN MILLION DIRHAMS )
less
than
20-
40-
60-
80-
100-
120-
200-
250-
300-
350-
400-
450-
500-
550-
1000-
20
40
60
80
100
120
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
1000
1500
Actual
21
12
2
5
0
1
0
3
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
2
Budget
19
10
4
3
3
1
1
1
2
0
1
2
1
1
0
2
The total expenditure is divided into three components, namely teaching, services and administrative and
others. The reported financial data of 2010-2011 shows that in the UAE 58% of the expenditures is
allocated to salaries of academic and administrative staff. This percentage is 69% and 46% for federal and
CAA-licensed institutions respectively. The significant difference may be due to the fact that many CAA
institutions offer diploma degrees only and therefore they do not require recruitment of terminal degree
holders, while federal institutions hire a very small number of part-time faculty.
AED468 million (15%) of the revenues of the CAA-licensed institutions is donated by local governments.
79% and 19% of it are donated by Abu Dhabi and Dubai governments respectively. Most of these
amounts represent tuition fees of students. Also, there are some institutions whose budgets are taken in
charge by companies. The number of CAA-licensed institutions that are significantly supported financially
by local governments or organisations is six.
3. Clusters of Institutions
CHEDS has computed indicators for 12 clusters of institutions which were identified using the
following clustering criteria across four dimensions:
Level of programs offered: (up to Diploma, Bachelor degree, Master Degree, and Doctoral
programs) (clusters 1-4)
Size of institution: Small (<1,000 students), Medium (1,000 to 3,999 students), and Large
(>3999 students) (clusters 5-7)
the Federal institutions and the CAA-licensed institutions (clusters 8-9)
Location of main campus: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Northern Emirates (Clusters 10-12)
Some results for these clusters are given in the following sections.
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
4.Revenue and Expenditure per Student
Fig. 3 shows that average of both the revenues and the expenditures per student are highest for
smaller institutions. This could be explained by the fact this cluster (Cluster 5) contains relatively
new institutions which are in the establishment stage and therefore have small enrolment due to
their age, and specialized institutions which are specially funded. Revenues and expenditures of
the federal institutions, Abu Dhabi based institutions, and those that offer PhD programs are
similar to each other and show the second highest revenues / expenditures per student. The least
costly institutions are those that are specialized in Associate Degree / Diploma.
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Cluster 5 – Small institutions
The standard errors of these two indicators (revenue and expenditure) are large. In fact this is the
case in every one of the clusters. This is first examined in more detail in the highest expenditure
cluster, namely the small institutions (Cluster 5).
Fig. 4 shows that the institutions collect in four groups, namely those with a per student figure <=AED20,000;
20,001 to 40,000; 40,001 to 100,000; and >100,000. (Institution names have been omitted.) Omitting the last
group, Fig. 4 is re-scaled to show the other three groups (Fig. 5).
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Cluster 1 – Diploma institutions
Fig. 6 gives the distribution of the financial resources per student of Cluster 1 which is composed
of the eight institutions offering only Diplomas. It shows two institutions with the minimum
resources per student, while one institution is at the other end of the scale.
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Cluster 2- Bachelor institutions
Fig.7 indicates that there are four institutions of Cluster 2 (Bachelor institutions) whose resources
are close to AED100,000/student. One institution has, almost four times the overall average
expenditure of around AED60,000.
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Cluster 3 – Master institutions
Fig. 8 depicts the distribution of the financial resources of the institutions of Cluster 3 which is
composed of the institutions that offer up to Master programs. This cluster includes some of the
largest institutions. This cluster includes seven of the institutions whose financial resources per
student exceeds or is close to AED100,000.
Fig. 9 is a reproduction of Fig. 8, omitting the six institutions with greatest resources.
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Indicators of the UAE HE Sector
Cluster 4 – Doctoral institutions
Fig. 10 illustrates the financial situation of the institutions that offer also PhD programs. This
cluster is composed of eight institutions, one having significantly more resources than the others.
Fig. 11 is a reproduction of Fig. 10, omitting the two institutions with greatest resources.
© Center for Higher Education Data and Statistics
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