The Nigerian University System in a Recessionary Economy

Adopting the political economy review framework, the paper notes that government support for University education in Nigeria over time has plummeted as a result of long term non-democratization of the country. To ascertain the arguments that University education can drive growth of nations, the paper adopting the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) methodology, found that the effect of contemporaneous graduate output on total national output is positive and significant and that Federal allocation to education affected national output more significantly with a lag. The unit root result indicated that graduate output, gross domestic product, federal allocation to education, gross fixed capital formation and foreign direct investment were integrated of order one 1(1). The co- integration test indicated absence of long-run relationship between real output and education performance indicators. Summarily indicating that the more a nation spends on University education, the more her output will grow. After establishing the positive link between University funding and national output, the paper considered the dwindling earnings of the country resulting from recessionary pressure that had caused further decline in University funding and suggested options that could reverse the recessionary trend to encourage improved funding to University education. The paper further suggests alternative strategies for raising funds for University education in Nigeria to reduce the pressure on government