Despite the potential of tertiary education to generate higher incomes and close the poverty gap within and between countries, it is still a challenge for many countries to ensure equity and quality in their higher education admissions. Compared to the more privileged, students from marginalized backgrounds face inequitable inputs that restrict…

China has witnessed unprecedented higher education expansion since the 1990s. The gross higher education enrollment rate--the percentage of student population of all ages enrolled in the higher education institutions relative to the total 18-22 population--has increased from 9.8% in 1998 to more than 40% in 2016. As the overall postsecondary…

The Chinese government has implemented a series of special admission policies in recent years to increase access to elite universities for disadvantaged students from rural areas and less developed inland regions. Using administrative data of 1996-2015 freshman cohorts and survey data of a 2014 freshman cohort at X University in the eastern China,…

China has made huge strides in expanding access to higher education since the 1980s. The main approach to achieve mass higher education was cost-sharing reforms of tertiary education. This article examines the policy reforms that affected tuition, fees and subsidies for tertiary students since the end of the 1980s and looks at the effects in terms…

By sending out questionnaires to 106 counselors of 98 colleges and universities, panel discussion and interviewing, the authors implement a fairly comprehensive survey on the development of the financial aid system of assisting impoverished students in higher education institutes (HEIs) in China, including national student loans, award fund…