The article examines the budget financing of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Ukraine for 2019-2021. The existing budget financing system, which is based on a formulaic approach to the distribution of state budget expenditures among HEIs, is analyzed. The considered components of the budget financing of HEIs: the amount of financing of stable activities; the amount of funding provided depending on the activity indicators of the higher education institutions and the funding of the reserve. Factors affecting the size of each component were analyzed. The peculiarities of considering the regional aspect in the distribution of expenses for higher education have been revealed. The unevenness of budget financing of HEIs in the regional section was determined. Thus, in 2021, according to the volume of financing of state-owned HEIs, 5 out of 24 regions of Ukraine received UAH 11,648 million out of UAH 18,299 million of total funding in Ukraine, which was 63.8%. In addition, 19 HEIs (13%) out of 145 HEIs under state ownership of the country received funding in the amount of UAH 7,711 million, which was 42% of the total funding of HEIs of Ukraine. Financing of stable activities of higher education institutions is the main part of revenues from the budget for educational activities and ranges from 81 to 97% of the total financing of the i-th HEI. And considering the regional aspect is carried out, based on the formulaic methodology, only in the component that depends on the performance indicators of the HEIs. The amount of funding provided, depending on the activity indicators of HEIs, ranges from 2.7% to 19.1% of the total funding of the institution. Thus, the article examines the problems of budget financing of regional universities. According to the results of the conducted research, it was proposed to revise the regional indicator, which is taken into account when calculating the amount of funding provided depending on the activity indicators of HEIs. The authors proposed to adjust the indicator of the scale of activities of the higher education institution, as there is double counting, because the calculation contingent is taken as the basis. Effective state policy should be one of the ways to solve the regional problems of budget financing of HEIs mentioned in the article, as a component of the development of regional HEIs. Since the state policy should be aimed at supporting the balanced sustainable development of all territories of Ukraine.

The components of the chain of influence of the HEI ranking on the economic growth of the country are studied in the article. The relation between the keywords university, rankings and economic was found based on the bibliometric analysis. Based on correlation and regression analysis, there has been proved the relation between the components of interaction in the chain: Total overall ranking score of universities in the country – number of FTE students enrolled in country’s rated HEIs – number of country’s rated Universities – GDP of the country. The confirmation of the obtained calculations is a questionnaire survey carried out among the students of the HEIs. The results of the questionnaire survey indicate the existence of the influence of the HEI ranking on the number of students enrolled in educational institutions of the studied country. Thus, based on correlation and regression analysis and sociological research, the article proves the hypothesis about the existence of the influence of the HEI ranking on the economic growth of the country.