Finance of USA universities: from marketing to other-resource raising

In many countries higher education institutions have recently experienced some problems impacting negatively on their financial sustainability: this has never been as true as in 2009, when the most obvious focus of attention was the worldwide recession. Governments increasingly need higher education institutions to help them to achieve a number of social and economic goals. In order to cope with multiple goals, this implies that revenue diversification and revenue management become a priority for universities. The paper investigates the alternative instruments of funding universities. Particularly, the analysis is focused on the revenue composition of USA universities, giving particular emphasis to the wide range of stakeholders and sources. The analysis gives evidence that net gains are related to revenue diversification.