Measuring and analyzing the efficiency of expenditure on Iraqi universities using the super efficiency approach

The research aims to measure the efficiency of government spending on Iraqi universities using the Super Efficiency approach within the framework of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. It analyzes the disparities in spending efficiency among Iraqi universities and identifies the institutions that achieve the highest levels of efficiency, as well as those suffering from underperformance. Furthermore, it diagnoses the factors influencing spending efficiency on universities, whether administrative, organizational, related to human resources, or infrastructure. The research problem is centered on answering the following question: To what extent is spending on Iraqi universities efficient, and what are the factors contributing to the variance in efficiency among these universities according to the Super Efficiency method?The research concludes that the University of Fallujah ranked second in terms of scale efficiency, with a scale efficiency value of 0.999. This indicates that by using inputs at a rate of 1%, the university was able to achieve a 0.99% increase in outputs, a highly significant level compared to other universities. The recently established university managed to attain this output level due to the efficiency of its administrative leadership. The research recommends that the Ministry of Higher Education and university administrations in Iraq investigate the reasons behind the low relative efficiency of certain universities and work on addressing the root causes. Additionally, the factors that enabled other universities to achieve full efficiency should be studied and considered as practical models to be emulated by less efficient universities in order to attain full relative efficiency.