This article analyses how political preferences, which are co-determined by the beliefs of decision-makers and influences of interest groups and the general public, affect the decisions to maintain or cut public funding for tertiary education during the economic crisis. Our sample included 29 European countries which we divided into two groups depending on the level of public funding for tertiary education before the crisis, which we used as a measure of revealed political preferences. We then observed the differences in changes in public tertiary education funding during the crisis between these two groups of countries using five different indicators. Three of the five indicators show that countries with a stronger political preference for tertiary education public funding cut their spending on tertiary education to a lesser extent (or even increased spending) during the economic crisis.