Diversified Higher Education And The Protection Of Students' Interests

In the past 60 years, higher education's operating system has transformed from unification to diversification in China. Newly emerged non-governmental higher education providers, like private higher education colleges and Sino-foreign cooperative education institutions, have brought fresh blood into the development of China's higher education. Meanwhile, some deep-seated contradictions have also emerged in the operating system of non-governmental higher education, which are mainly caused by the contradiction between the operating system's marketization and the old administration system.In order to abate this contradiction, Chinese government has also been trying to improve related institutions. The improvement can be divided into three historical stages. The 1^st stage is from 1982 to 1992, when the institution of non-governmental higher education germinated. The 2^nd stage is from 1993 to 2000, when the institution was established. The 3^rd stage is from 2001 till today, when the institution has been mended and adjusted. In the 3^rd stage, the institution has become more and more developed. Legal papers were also carried out in this stage. Before this, the institution mainly consisted of policy papers. Also in this stage, because of some sudden emergencies, this disclosed the deep-seated contradiction in non-governmental higher education; the government began to adjust the institution of non-governmental higher education.Non-governmental higher education differs from public higher education in service providers and price mechanisms, which has challenged and will continue to challenge government's capacity building. Government should ensure the public attribute of higher education not be invaded by its private attribute when conducting deregulation in higher education, build a fair environment of competition when breaking the unification system in higher education, design the holistic related institutions when promoting private higher education and Sino-foreign cooperative education.In a diversified higher education, the protection of students' interests has its specific characteristics. The harm to students' interests in non-governmental higher education has many forms, for example, the recruit material could be fade, the recruit process could adopt multi-level marketing mode, the validity of diploma could be limited, and the appeal mechanism could have its merits, etc. The inner reason of these harms can be concluded in four dimensions; the information between different stake-holders are imbalanced, students' fee haven't a safety mechanism, institution's runners don't have self-determination in financing, the inside corporation governance structure and the outside legal person regulations are not completed.Faced similar problems, some countries have adopted corresponding measures to protect students' interests. Australia carried out a legal paper, which called Education Services for Oversea Students, to protect oversea students' interests. In this paper, students are regard as consumers, and mechanisms of refunding and tuition assurance are established to protect students' rights as consumers, along with a registration monitor system to ensure the quality of cross-border education providers. New Zealand government also regards oversea students and students in private colleges as consumers. To protect oversea students' rights, an appeal authority has been set up by the government. Along with the peer agencies like New Zealand Qualification Authority, a stabilized appeal mechanism has been established for these students. Meanwhile, New Zealand set up a fee protection policy for private education providers, which can avoid the accident that students can't continue their schooling when their provider facing a financing crisis. In Singapore, a quality education framework for private schools has been set up by Ministry of Education, Consumers Association, and Economic Development Board. A tuition assurance scheme has been adopted as an important element in this framework to protect students' economic interests.These three countries all protect students' interests in the light of consumers. However, in China's legal system, it still needs to be clarified that students can be identified as consumers. In the view of jurisprudence logics, theoretically, students in non-governmental higher education institutions have the essential elements as consumers, which make it possible to protect their interests as consumers through lawsuit. However, it's quite difficult to do so in judicatory practice, because non-governmental higher education institutions can't fit in any legal person type in civil law. From the experience of foreign legal practice, legal body of financial group should be the ideal legal person type for non-governmental higher education institutions.However, considering the operating practice in China mainland, legal body of financial group can't fit in all the private higher education and Sino-foreign cooperative education institutions. Facing this reality, we should adopt incrementalism policy making mode. Juridical person for non-governmental higher education institutions should be reformed bit by bit. Legal body of financial group can be the ideal type of juridical person for non-governmental higher education institutions, but the current juridical person type should not be abandoned, which can be modified for a better practice. Meanwhile, students' economic interests can be protected by making a tuition trust policy, through which a third party takes the trusteeship for all the tuition or part of it, also the obligations and rights of related parties can be clarified on the basis of Trust Act. On the groundwork of juridical person's reform and tuition trust policy, some other measures should be taken to protect students' interests, which include an appeal mechanism for students, the improvement of inner governance structure of education providers, and a faithful relationship between government and non-governmental higher education institutions.