Projections on Regular Higher Education Expansion in the Next 15 to 30 Years

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday III)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Educational development

Proposal

In late 2015, the Chinese government officially adopted a two child policy, which allows two children per family starting Jan.1st, 2016 (Li, 2018). The former one child policy which was introduced in 1979 phased out in the same year. It is expected by many that the Two Child Policy (TCP) will bring a baby boom in a few years, and it is not hard to imagine that in 15 to 30 years, when this generation of the “second child” goes to college, it will certainly have an impact on China’s higher education. Population planning policies such as one-child policy and TCP have great impact on a countries’ demography, and population change is one of the main reasons for higher education expansion. Therefore, this research intends to investigate and project, under TCP, what changes will higher education in China be facing in the next 15 to 30 years.
Although the TCP has been released for over two years, no following government policies have been issued that specify how higher education will accommodate a presumed expansion of demand. In the pre-school level, the State Council of China has come up with education planning for pre-schools for the upcoming stress caused by the TCP: such as limited educational resources for the new-borns and teacher shortage. However, in the higher education level, no projections or education planning has been made.
Previous literatures show that predictions have been made by researchers to predict higher education expansion in China, those predictions were made before the TCP which was released in 2016. Factors such as population increase under the new policy. Most of the existing researches on higher education in China either published before the TCP was released, or focus mostly on other aspects of higher education such as its market influence, higher education expansion history and reform. No qualitative or quantitative analysis on higher education expansion under the TCP has been conducted.
Despite the several limitations of prior literatures, they still give useful directions and inspirations for this research. Li, John Whalley and Chunbing Xing, and Yang’s research reviewed for us the higher education conditions and expansion history for us, and suggested some important figures, which is inspiring and useful for research of this study. Moreover, the studies on demographic changes such as Yonezawa and Kim’s and Vincent-Lancrin’s related in demographic change and higher education have given this research a lot of inspirations in research design and data analysis of the quantitative data acquired.
The purpose of this research is to understand the connection between the TCP and its possible impact on higher education in China. The results will be used to inform government, higher education institutions and other stakeholders on possible policy and practice in face of future challenges. This research intends to examine mainly the following questions: under the TCP, 1) Is there going to be an expansion in higher education in China? To what extent? 2) What challenges will higher education be facing in the next 15 to 30 years? Are higher education institutions ready? There is also a discussion question in this research: what are the strategies for government and institutions to cope with the changes and challenges.

Author

• Sijie Yu, Teachers College, Columbia University