Reforming Higher Education Finance in Turkey: the Alumni-Crowdfunded Student Debt Fund "a-Csdf" Model

Abstract

This study presents an innovative and sustainable system formobilizing Turkish university alumni to contribute to acrowdfunded pool repackaged as a student debt instrument withan elaborate performance tracking tool, various payoff structuresand income-contingent repayment schedules. The ultimate aim isto offer a remedy for the conspicuous global shortage ofalternative finance sources and various forms of aid to highereducation students in the short-term, and, through enablingequitable and egalitarian access to quality higher education,transforming society and enhancing economic development in thelonger-term. The model rests upon a six-dimensional frameworkand its infrastructure is facilitated by a newly emerged form ofdigitally enhanced financing, “crowdfunding”. The researchmethod involves content analysis and data triangulation forvalidation purposes to determine the sub-themes surrounding thehigher education problem in Turkey. The theme-driven keywordsare searched for on Turkey’s first original social network, EksiSozluk, to uncover trends and biases towards student loans, debtrepayment and associated concepts. Subsequently, the samekeywords are utilized in a Google Trends search volume analysis,and are finally validated by a focus group discussion. Thetheoretical framework to explain students’ attitudes towardsborrowing and loan repayment and the motivation behind alumniand charitable giving, rests mainly on behavioral economics. TheA-CDSF Model uniquely addresses the higher education financeproblem in Turkey and offers an easily implementable originalsolution for institutions and policy makers.