Research on factors affecting financial autonomy of Public Universities in Vietnam

In recent years, public universities have been implementing regulations on financial autonomy according to Decree No. 60/2021/ND-CP "Regulating the financial autonomy mechanism of business units-public". By the end of 2025, higher education units under the Ministry of Education and Training simultaneously implemented a roadmap to increase the level of financial autonomy. Therefore, financial autonomy is an important issue, a measure of the management level of public universities, and improving the quality of university training in Vietnam. This study evaluated the impact of factors on the financial autonomy of public universities. It used the AMOS-SEM estimation method to assess the impact of these factors on the financial autonomy. The number of survey samples were 320 officials and lecturers at 32 public universities. The result showed that state policies and laws, the management capacity of the college, development strategy, teaching staff, facilities, and scientific research activities were factors that had a positive impact on financial autonomy. In contrast, the development of the labor market had no impact on the financial autonomy. The study’s findings have implications for policymakers and public universities to have appropriate strategies and plans to implement financial autonomy in the coming time.