Reforming Higher Education Finance in Turkey: The Alumni - Crowdfunded Student Debt Fund “A-CSDF” Model

Abstract

This study presents an innovative and sustainable system for mobilizing Turkish university alumni to contribute to a crowdfunded pool repackaged as a student debt instrument with an elaborate performance tracking tool, various payoff structures and income-contingent repayment schedules. The ultimate aim is to offer a remedy for the conspicuous global shortage of alternative finance sources and various forms of aid to higher education students in the short-term, and, through enabling equitable and egalitarian access to quality higher education, transforming society and enhancing economic development in the longer-term. The model rests upon a six-dimensional framework and its infrastructure is facilitated by a newly emerged form of digitally enhanced financing, “crowdfunding”. The research method involves content analysis and data triangulation for validation purposes to determine the sub-themes surrounding the higher education problem in Turkey. The theme-driven keywords are searched for on Turkey’s first original social network, Eksi Sozluk, to uncover trends and biases towards student loans, debt repayment and associated concepts. Subsequently, the same keywords are utilized in a Google Trends search volume analysis, and are finally validated by a focus group discussion. The theoretical framework to explain students’ attitudes towards borrowing and loan repayment and the motivation behind alumni and charitable giving, rests mainly on behavioral economics. The A-CDSF Model uniquely addresses the higher education finance problem in Turkey and offers an easily implementable original solution for institutions and policy makers.