Lacking of knowledge, which has a high value, an individual cannot successfully take part in everyday social or business interaction. Furthermore, knowledge represents a hidden treasure of every nation. With the help from the family and country, everyone has to find his or her own way to proper education. In the %90, the European societies were facing drastic social, political and economic changes, which led to events in former Yugoslavia. Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia and Monte Negro, were the four countries from the former Yugoslavia, where the centralized educational system was common, meaning, traditional educational systems were based on socialist ideology. The four countries mentioned above signed the Bologna declaration and they implemented the Bologna Process in their higher education system. This work is comparing the higher education systems of the four countries, studies the legislation on higher education in other words the success of the progress towards achieving the goals of the Bologna Process, studies the issues of financing private and public universities and competitiveness within private and public education institutions. The purpose of the study is to find out if the higher education is still under the influence of the politics in these countries.

Znanje je vrednota, brez katere se ne moremo uspešno vključiti v vsakdanje družbene odnose ali v poslovni svet ter predstavlja nevidno bogastvo vsakega naroda. Pot do znanja mora vsak posameznik najti sam, pri tem mu pomagata družina in država. V devetdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja so se vse evropske družbe soočile z izrazitimi družbenimi, političnimi in gospodarskimi spremembami, kar je vplivalo tudi na dogajanja v tedanji Jugoslaviji. Slovenija, Srbija, Hrvaška in Črna gora so predstavljale štiri izmed šestih socialističnih republik tedanje Jugoslavije, v katerih je veljal centraliziran sistem izobraževanja, kar pomeni, da so bili tradicionalni izobraževalni sistemi pogojeni s planskim sistemom in socialistično ideologijo. Vse omenjene države so podpisnice Bolonjske deklaracije in so implementirale bolonjski proces v svojo visokošolsko zakonodajo. Doktorska disertacija se osredotoča na primerjavo visokošolskega sistema obravnavanih držav, proučuje zakonsko ureditev visokega šolstva oziroma uspešnost pri uresničevanju sprejetih reformskih ciljev, problematiko financiranja javnih in zasebnih univerz ter pojav konkurenčnosti med zasebnimi in javnimi univerzami. Osrednji namen disertacije je ugotoviti, ali je visoko šolstvo še vedno podvrženo politiki države.