Logical analyses of legislative texts show that the root cause for the huge controversy elicited by the issue of reasonable returns for China's privately run schools lies in the fact that legislators have confused public benefit versus non-public benefit and profit making versus non-profit making, concepts that pertain, respectively, to two…

The growth of private higher education has come as a surprise to most governments, which have tried to catch up in their regulatory and funding policymaking. In China, Malaysia and South Africa they have given legal recognition to previously disallowed private higher education and this has helped to fuel its subsequent growth. Some governments…