This paper attempts to document the challenges facing the Turkish
higher education system. Our analysis suggests that the nature of these problems
and issues resonate closely with those that have sparked major reform initiatives
in other parts of the world. Among the most important of these are the demand for
enrollment expansion in the face of declining public resources; inadequate levels
of teaching staff of high quality; inefficiencies exacerbated by shrinking public
funding; the need for alternative ways of diversifying revenue sources; the
problem of extremely tight governmental regulations and bureaucracies in the
organisation and administration of higher education; and the deterioration of
quality in many areas.peer-reviewe
