In contemporary higher education systems, funding is increasingly associated with performativity, assessment, and competition, and universities are seeking different forms of financing their activities. One of these new forms is crowdfunding, a tool enabled by the digitalization of finance. Based on data from the UK higher education system and two crowdfunding platforms, our study adds to previous crowdfunding research in academic settings that have, thus far, focused on research projects, and assesses who is participating, their level of engagement and the resources they have gathered from crowdfunding. Our findings show that crowdfunding is used more by universities that have fewer resources. These universities are more teaching-oriented, less prestigious, and have a student body largely derived from lower socio-economic sectors of society. The popularity of crowdfunding in this type of university suggests that crowdfunding may enhance the democratization of higher education funding. However, as optimal crowdfunding participation and engagement requires high academic-to-student ratios and total-staff-to-academic-staff ratios, universities facing a greater financial precarity may be disadvantaged in their access to and engagement with crowdfunding. Differentials between part-time and full-time student ratios may exacerbate this disadvantage. Our study suggests that crowdfunding is a viable means of obtaining additional financing for learning activities complementing the fundings from other sources, but raises concerns about the use of crowdfunding as a burden to academics and students to find resources to meet learning experiences that ought to be provided by universities in the first place.

在当代高等教育系统中，资金越来越多地与绩效，评估和竞争相关联，而大学正在寻求各种形式的活动资金。这些新形式之一就是众筹，这是一种通过金融数字化实现的工具。基于来自英国高等教育系统和两个众筹平台的数据，我们的研究增加了迄今为止在学术环境中的众筹研究，迄今为止，该研究一直侧重于研究项目，并评估了谁参与，他们的参与程度以及他们拥有的资源从众筹中筹集到的资金。我们的研究结果表明，资源较少的大学更多地使用了众筹。这些大学更注重教学，不那么有声望，并且学生群体主要来自社会经济地位较低的部门。在这种类型的大学中，众筹的普及表明，众筹可以增强高等教育经费的民主化。但是，由于最佳的众筹参与和参与要求高的学生与学生的比例以及总的教职员工与学术人员的比例，因此面临更大财务不稳定的大学在获得和参与众筹方面可能会处于不利地位。兼职和全日制学生比例之间的差异可能加剧这一劣势。我们的研究表明，众筹是获取学习活动额外资金的一种可行方法，以补充其他来源的资金，