Governance and Finance in Chinese Universities-Emerging Chinese Model-

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Since the turn of the century, Chinese higher education experienced a tremendous growth and expansion basically depending on tuition revenues and private sources of funding, while still under the strong control by the national Control. This study tried to reveal the changes in financial structure of higher education institutions, through. analyses of the texts of significant government policy statement and interviews with officials in a few prominent universities.Findings from the survey can be summarized as below: Chinese national universities have developed a unique structure of governance and finance in order to respond to the challenges created by the rapid economic and social development. Even through they are “national" in the legal sense, the expansion was critically dependent on the increase in tuition revenues and other incomes through market activities. This structure created a set of strong incentive systems for the faculty members. Departments are also driven by the revenues from their sales in educational services. On the other hand, the governance of the universities remain under the strong control of the national government.This structure involves serious contradictions. Some of the behaviors of the academics and the institutions have been the subject of social criticisms for their behavior betraying the image of academia. Pressed by those criticisms, the national government has recently issued a few policy statement making it clear that the government would not allow excesses. Nevertheless, to the extent that the recent development has been driven by the sheer force of market, it remains an open question that such statements would in fact lead to significant changes. In these sense, Chinese higher education is developing a structure of governance and finance with is a unique model in international comparison.