International Comparison On Investment In Higher Education

At the cross of the century, China's higher education has experienced a bouncing development, and begins to stride forward to the stage of higher education massification. But along with it, the problems appear continually. The conflict between the rapid enlargement of higher education scale and the lacking of higher education funds become deepen day by day.By other's faults, wise men correct their own. The policies and reform methods of governments all over the world on the background of higher education finance crisis can provide experiences to Chinese reform of the investment system of higher education. The scales of investing in higher education and rates of return to investment in higher education of other countries can offer criterions to the development of Chinese investment in higher education. The purpose of his dissertation is, by the methods of international comparison and using the experiences of other countries for reference, to considerate more about Chinese reform of the investment system of higher education.The structure of investments in higher education of The United States, Japan, France, Germany and The United kingdom has different characteristics of themselves, and accordingly, the proportions of the diversified sources of investments in higher education funds also have great differences. But all of the governments in the five countries attach great importance to investment in higher education and seek multiple sources of it. At the present moment, China should enhance the scale of investments of the government, reform the mode of it, arrange tuition fees reasonably and develop the other investment systems more rapidly.There are two main indicators to weigh up one country's scale of investment in higher education: fund of higher education as a percentage of GDP and public investment of higher education as a percentage of government expenditure. The two indicators reflect the total scale of education funds in one country and the important degree to education of one country attach respectively. Comparing between the two country groups of WEI countries and OECD countries with the two indicators and combined with the status quo of Chinese investment in higher education, we can find that the later indicator is actually high enough, but because of the indicator of public revenue as a percentage of GDP in China is quite lower comparing to the international average level, the former indicator of public funds as a percentage of GDP is lower comparing to other countries.The rates of return to investments in higher education are the proportion of the benefits to the costs of higher education. It reflects the net investment benefits to higher education. By comparison, the dissertation finds that the Chinese rates of return to higher education have been experienced a notable increasing process since the 1990's. The Mincer-type rates of return to higher education have achieved and even overcome the international average level. But among different phases of education, different ownership, different region and different sexual people, the difference of rates of return is tremendous. And the results of research with the internal rates of return to higher education is lower than the average level of the world, and even much lower than the countries with middle and lower income.