Cost Behavior Research Of China's Higher Learning Institutes

The sustainable development of China's higher education will depend on the off-campus investment, and more importantly, its effective use in the higher learning institutes. The investment, though limited, needs to be guaranteed by governmental policy. It's undoubted that China's higher education enters massification stage when the limited public investment and ineffective use of these resources are under strong criticism. It's accepted that public investment is not enough but it needs further documentation whether the higher learning institutes have allocated and used these resources in an effective way in the course of education. The research on this problem, whether it leads to yes or no, is significant. A suitable perspective and the analyzing methods are of vital importance for a successful research. This dissertation starts the analysis from the changing tendency of the expenditure in the higher learning institutes and tries to find out the problems by using the cost analysis method. The empirical study proves the existence of some problems such as low efficiency in cost behavior. Obviously, the purpose of this dissertation is more than finding out the problem, it aims at putting forward the institutional mechanism that can eradicate the problems by rational analysis and judgments. Therefore, after an empirical analysis that the cost behavior mechanism is under the influence of encouragement and control mechanism of higher education, there's further empirical analysis that the present higher education system has a weakening control over the operation efficiency of higher learning institutes. On the basis of the empirical conclusion, the dissertation analyzes the balance trend and measures for the system reform in higher education by employing the property right of new institutional economics, agent, and transaction cost as analysis instruments, and puts forward the three suggestions as follows:First, improve the construction of property institution for higher education. The cost behavior actually represents the relationship of property and rights existed in education in the higher learning institutes. Rather than a kind of subordination, this relationship derives from the ownership of the higher learning institutes in the course of education. For the likelihood of ambiguity of the power, responsibility and benefits involved in this relationship, the institutionalization of property within higher learning institutes is needed.Second, reconstruct the encouragement and control mechanism of higher education system after the social and institutional transformation.With the fast development of higher education, the government's role is to be redefined. It will take on more responsibility to ensure the proper development of higher education within the institutional and legal frame.Third, reconstruction of university organization institution is needed. Higher learning institutes are still the subordinates to the governments in spite of their corporation status, which creates the transaction fees under the control of interior staff. The institutes lack power to run the schools and allocate resources by adhering to the rational university goals.The originality of this dissertation:1. Methods. It designs a framework and puts forwards the analysis methods to evaluate and analyze the present higher education system, as well as the empirical methods of the influence of higher education system over its cost behavior.2. Design a set of consideration watches and analysis models for the higher learning institutes to do self-evaluation and analysis of cost behavior.3. Putting forward the measures for the present higher education reform and construction by using new institutional economics theory.