Budgetary performance of public universities and government subsidies; the case of the Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango

Abstract

This study analyzes the budget exercise from 2016 to 2022, to the extent that the level of transparency of the Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango (UJED) allowed. Even so, there were highly relevant findings in a comparative exercise from 2018 to the end of 2022, where the salary and wage item shows a precipitous increase, while investment and operating expenses declined sharply, so the analysis focused on detailing significant findings. Using a data collection and processing methodology that neutralizes inflationary effects for effective numerical comparability, the longitudinal study on the budgetary performance of the Educational Institution (IE) as an autonomous public entity was carried out. This enabled the descriptive answering of the research questions and achieve the objectives set, mainly finding that, by using constant prices for the comparison of the budget between periods, the federal subsidy has decreased, since the increase is lower than inflation in each exercise. In the development of the study, variables that could be affecting the effectiveness of IE as a Mexican public university were also investigated, specifically in the discussion section of the study, which is why a compendium of national studies of public universities in three fundamental aspects is proposed for future lines of research: 1) Budget and budgetary sources, 2) Organizational structures and regulatory frameworks, and 3) Organizational culture and self-government.