Cost Sharing in China’s Higher Education: Analyses of Major Stakeholders

Abstract

With changed relationships between society, the market, and universities, stakeholders have penetrated China’s traditional monopolistic relationships between the state and public higher education institutions, with the role of external actors becoming far more important during the last few decades in influencing internal affairs of individual higher education institutions. As the proportion of governmental sources for higher education (in relation to GDP) shrinks year by year, the share of students and their families has been increasing significantly. Alongside China’s developmental paths/models there have been changes of university governance modes as well, which have led to changed relationships among stakeholders with different winners and losers created each time. This chapter focuses on the three most significant stakeholders in Chinese higher education: governments, students and their families, and the business community.