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The Higher Educational Transformation of China and Its Global Implications

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  • Yao Li
  • John Whalley
  • Shunming Zhang
  • Xiliang Zhao

Abstract

This paper documents the major transformation of higher education that has been underway in China since 1999 and evaluates its potential global impacts. Reflecting China's commitment to continued high growth through quality upgrading and the production of ideas and intellectual property as set out in both the 10th (2001-2005) and 11th (2006-2010) five-year plans, this transformation focuses on major new resource commitments to tertiary education and also embodies significant changes in organizational form. This focus on tertiary education differentiates the Chinese case from other countries who earlier at similar stages of development instead stressed primary and secondary education. The number of undergraduate and graduate students in China has been grown at approximately 30% per year since 1999, and the number of graduates at all levels of higher education in China has approximately quadrupled in the last 6 years. The size of entering classes of new students and total student enrollments have risen even faster, and have approximately quintupled. Prior to 1999 increases in these areas were much smaller. Much of the increased spending is focused on elite universities, and new academic contracts differ sharply from earlier ones with no tenure and annual publication quotas often used. All of these changes have already had large impacts on China's higher educational system and are beginning to be felt by the wider global educational structure. We suggest that even more major impacts will follow in the years to come and there are implications for global trade both directly in ideas, and in idea derived products. These changes, for now, seem relatively poorly documented in literature.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13849.

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Date of creation: Mar 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13849

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  1. Richard B. Freeman, 2006. "People Flows in Globalization," NBER Working Papers 12315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J. & Vytlacil, Edward, 2010. "Estimating Marginal Returns to Education," IZA Discussion Papers 5275, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Enrico Moretti, 2002. "Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education: Evidence From Longitudinal and Repeated Cross-Sectional Data," NBER Working Papers 9108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt & Paul Glewwe & Li Guo, 2000. "Markets, Human Capital, and Inequality: Evidence from Rural China," Working Papers benjamin-00-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
  5. Yaohui Zhao, 1997. "Labor Migration and Returns to Rural Education in China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(4), pages 1278-1287.
  6. WHALLEY, John & XIN, Xian, 2010. "China's FDI and non-FDI economies and the sustainability of future high Chinese growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 123-135, March.
  7. Fleisher, Belton M. & Li, Haizheng & Li, Shi & Wang, Xiaojun, 2004. "Sorting, Selection, and Transformation of the Return to College Education in China," IZA Discussion Papers 1446, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  8. Whalley, John & Zhang, Shunming, 2007. "A numerical simulation analysis of (Hukou) labour mobility restrictions in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 392-410, July.
  9. Arrow, Kenneth J., 1973. "Higher education as a filter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 193-216, July.
  10. Spence, A Michael, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 355-74, August.
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Cited by:
  1. Bai, Chong-en & Chi, Wei, 2011. "Determinants of undergraduate GPAs in China: college entrance examination scores, high school achievement, and admission route," MPRA Paper 31240, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  2. John Whalley & Xiliang Zhao, 2010. "The Contribution of Human Capital to China’s Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 16592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Li, Shi & Xing, Chunbing, 2010. "China's Higher Education Expansion and its Labor Market Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 4974, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. Yitao Jiang & Xiaojun Shi & Shunming Zhang & Jingjing Ji, 2011. "The threshold effect of high-level human capital investment on China's urban-rural income gap," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 3(3), pages 297-320, September.
  5. Hălăngescu, Constantin I., 2012. "Mundus academicus: arhitectura și adaptarea la fluxurile globalizării (I)
    [Mundus academicus: architecture and adaptation to globalization flows (I)]    ," MPRA Paper 36839, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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