Exploring Issues and Improvement Measures in the Operation of the Special Account for Supporting Higher and Lifelong Education: Based on Expert Opinions

This study was conducted with the purpose of identifying major issues related to the operation of the Special Account for Supporting Higher and Lifelong Education and exploring future directions for its operation. To this end, the contents were reviewed by dividing them into the purpose, revenue, and expenditure contents through literature review, theoretical and institutional discussions of special accounts, and general requirements that special accounts should have, and then the issues surrounding the operation of the Special Account were analyzed using a survey of expert opinions, and major system improvement alternatives were presented. The results of this study showed that the current Special Account has major issues in terms of instability in terms of revenue, low consistency between the purpose and expenditure items of the Special Account, and consistency with future investment directions through comparative analysis of other special accounts. In order to resolve these issues and secure stable financial resources and set investment directions for higher education funds in the future, the following aspects should be considered. In the future, it is necessary to expand the scale and scope of specific revenues through the Special Account Act, and in terms of expenditures, the contents, targets, and purposes of the projects to be supported through the establishment of the Special Account need to be specifically stated. In the future, it is necessary to categorize higher education finance projects and include appropriate projects.