Financial management is critical to higher education institutions (HEIs), influencing their financial sustainability and academic success. This study evaluates the financial management performance of universities, focusing on the relationship between asset turnover and profitability using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. Analyzing financial data of Tashkent State University of Economics for 15 years (2008–2022), we assessed total asset turnover, non-financial asset turnover, and financial asset turnover, measuring profitability by return on assets (ROA). The results show that higher asset turnover is positively correlated with profitability: a 1% increase in asset turnover leads to a 0.22% increase in ROA, a 1% increase in non-financial asset turnover results in a 0.41% increase in ROA, and a 1% increase in financial asset turnover results in a 0.67% increase in ROA. Co-integration tests confirm a stable long-run relationship between these variables. This study highlights the importance of effective asset management to improve financial performance of institutions and calls for the use of advanced econometric models such as ARDL to understand financial dynamics in educational institutions.