The issue of higher education in China is one I have no push-back on to the view that it’s poor, globally not competitive and showing little signs of improvement. I’ll argue happily about the soundness of the financial system, the track record of the Chinese Communist Party or the long term value of infrastructure spending; but on the issue of higher education in China, you got me, it’s medieval.
The paper highlighted this week by Professor of Law at the Gonzaga University School of Law Ms. Ann M. Murphy looks at the scene through the lens of the U.S. system and the surge in students from China in recent years.
Just how good is the American system? Eight of the world’s Top-10 universities are in America and 53 of the Top-100 are also U.S. based. How many does China have, in the Top-100? Three, Beijing, Tsinghua and Fudan, none in the Top-30.
How big is the student surge? From 2007 to 2015 the number of students from China at American universities increased by 166%; of all foreign students studying in the United States Chinese now make up 30%.
Part of the problem is space in (good) Chinese universities has not kept pace with demand. Beijing and Tsinghua combined can only take 6,000 new students per annum, 1/20th of total applications. [Perspective, UCLA, America’s most applied to University received in 2015 112,000 applications and accepted 15,900 new students or 14% of the total]
Why are Chinese families so keen to have their children educated in the U.S.? You could start by asking President Xi whose daughter Xi Mingze (Xiao Muzi to her friends) is a recent graduate of Harvard? Reasons for preferring a U.S. education vary but a brutal entrance policy based on a single exam, a bias toward outdated rote learning and a lack of value of qualifications obtained from anything other than the top-tier universities seem mostly to blame.
Professor Murphy concludes her survey with a warning though to the U.S.; China has taken note (sort of) and from 2003 to 2013 the number of universities has doubled in China to 2,409 [Quality issues anybody?]. Over the same period America has reduced funding not only to higher education but to schools lower down the food chain. Project out, she seems to imply, and America’s towering superiority may not be as secure as an analysis of today’s numbers suggests.
You can access the paper in full via this link We Don’t Need No Education
Happy Sunday