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If we considered the University of West Bohemia (UWB) a city and its students and employees its residents, it would be the third-largest city in the Pilsen Region, after Pilsen and Klatovy. Today, more than 13,000 students study at UWB and almost 2,500 employees work there. Together, they form a community of approximately 15,500 people. The significance of a university, however, cannot be measured by its size alone.

The Pilsen Region needs more people with university degrees. According to the latest comparison of Czech regions published by the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) for the fourth quarter of 2025, 17.7% of people aged 15 and over in the Pilsen Region had a university degree, compared with the national average of 22.4%. The region ranked approximately 10th out of the 14 regions. Despite having a major university center, the Pilsen Region therefore lags significantly behind the national average in the share of university-educated people. The situation is even worse among those aged 25–34.

This is an important signal. The region is not overcoming its educational deficit among the younger generation quickly enough. If the Pilsen Region is to remain competitive in the long term, with an economy based on skilled work, research and innovation, we need to reverse this trend.

This is precisely why UWB decided to act. In 2023, it set increasing the number of students as one of its strategic goals. At the time, with approximately 11,500 students, the university aimed to grow to 14,000 gradually. Today, with the number of students surpassing 13,000, UWB is considering further growth to as many as 15,000. This is a deliberate response to the region's needs. Strong demographic cohorts are also now entering higher education.

However, the current funding system does not automatically encourage universities to respond in this way. Public universities are not simply funded according to the number of students, with each additional student bringing a corresponding increase in funding. Put simply, if UWB remained at approximately 11,500 students and did not expand its capacity, its basic state contribution would not automatically decrease proportionally. Conversely, increasing the number of students by thousands does not mean receiving a corresponding amount of additional funding for each student.

From a purely short-term economic perspective, it could therefore be more convenient for a university not to increase its student numbers. Fewer students mean less pressure on teaching staff, classrooms, laboratories and support services, while the basic institutional funding remains broadly comparable. For the Pilsen Region, however, such economically rational behavior would be highly damaging from a social perspective. It would mean fewer places for the strong cohorts entering higher education, fewer graduates for regional employers and a further deepening of the region's educational deficit.

UWB has therefore chosen the opposite path. It is expanding its capacity and accepting more students because it considers this part of its responsibility to the region. But this responsibility cannot be sustained in the long term through goodwill and universities' internal reserves alone. More students mean the need for additional teaching staff, greater classroom and laboratory capacity, modern infrastructure and higher costs to maintain the quality of education. At the same time, universities are expected to deliver world-class research, innovation, international competitiveness and an ever-greater contribution to society and the regions in which they operate.

The state cannot, on the one hand, expect universities to admit more young people and help address the needs of their regions and, on the other, fail to provide them with the financial conditions needed to do so properly.

The Czech Republic is now deciding whether to leverage the arrival of large demographic cohorts to increase its population's educational attainment or to squander this opportunity. Without a corresponding increase in higher education funding, universities may reach the limits of what they can accommodate. A young person who has the ability and meets the requirements for university study may still be unable to enroll in their chosen program simply because no place is available. That would be particularly bad news for regions that are already lagging in the share of their populations that are university-educated.

Funding for higher education is an investment in the education of a generation that will determine the Czech Republic's competitiveness and prosperity in the decades to come.

The commentary was written by Miroslav Lávička, Rector of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and Vice-Chair of the Czech Rectors' Conference.