Philanthropic Foundations in Higher Education – Comparative Perspectives from the United States and Germany
- To what extent do regime classifications help us understand higher education funding by foundations vis-à-vis the state? This dissertation investigates the explanatory value of three prominent regime classifications – Varieties of Capitalism, Three Worlds of Welfare, and Social Origins theory – for understanding higher education foundations in two regime types: the liberal
United States as well as corporatist Germany. The analysis shows that the classifications do indeed provide a good starting point since they enable us to draw conclusions about the country and activity field level. However, the analysis also shows that they meet their limits when philanthropic foundations are added to the picture since the classifications are not specific enough to correctly predict foundation behavior. The typology proposed in this study suggests that foundations can be placed on a continuum between funding through higher education to reach other aims and funding of higher education for its own sake. The place of foundations on the continuum is different in the sense that the rather market-oriented, liberal US foundations are more likely to support other aims through higher education, while the rather stateoriented,
corporatist-conservative German foundations more often want to support higher education for its own sake.
This study draws upon a range of both quantitative and qualitative data: German and American data sets including university funding statistics, 40 qualitative foundation vignettes, a representative survey of 1,004 German foundations, one focus group, and 49 semi-structured expert interviews conducted on-site.
One of the study’s major contributions is that it refines the regime classifications by considering the understudied role of independent, philanthropic foundations supporting the advancement of higher education. Furthermore, it establishes the first link between regime types and higher education literature by way of philanthropic foundations. As there is growing discussion in Germany and the US about private engagement versus public funding in higher education, the results ultimately have contemporary relevance for understanding the topic in a comparative manner.