HEC budget shortfall puts varsities in a fix Top Story January 24, 2021 PHOENIX: Pakistan — a 220 million population’s country with more than 1.8 million undergrad and graduation students enrolled in 135 public sector universities — has spent only Rs64 billion ($400 million) on its higher education. An average American university spends eight times more than the entire country’s higher education budget. A perusal of official documents, background briefings and discussions with the government officials reveal that out of Rs64 billion budget more than 80 percent is spent on salaries of the universities’ employees. The remaining 20 percent is spent on students. Despite this, the universities have no funds and are getting loans to pay the staff salaries. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) had requested Rs70,000 per student average grant from the government. However, according to the official documents, the commission was allocated Rs56,349 per student. It is important to note that HEC calculated the allocated amount without deducting the salaries of universities’ staff which is more than 80 percent of the total budget.