Research On The Trends Of Population Changes And Higher Education Scale Development In Hebei Province

With the expand enrollment of colleges since 1999, the higher education scale of China has developed by leaps. And the higher education career has developed quickly which has entered the massification stage now. Population is an important factor in the development of education. And the school-age population changes have a direct and profound impact on the higher education scale. This paper takes Hebei Province as an example. And in this paper the changes of school-age population and higher education scale in the next ten years are studied, in order to grasp the development trends of the higher education correctly, to use and allocate the higher education resources reasonably and to realize the sustained, stable and coordinated development of the higher education career.Using the multi-factor population prediction method, the mathematical model mainly based on age shift calculation is built to predict the school-age population of higher education and senior high school in Hebei Province from 2010 to 2020. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the school-age population scale of higher education has been rising till 2008 when the school-age population scale reached the peak of 7231 thousand people in Hebei Province. Then the scale began to decline. Predictions show that in the next ten years the school-age population scale of higher education will continue to drop rapidly and will reach the bottom of 3562.6 thousand people around 2020, less than half of the peak scale of 2008. Influenced by the dramatic changes of the school-age population, the gross enrollment rate of higher education in Hebei Province will increase substantially in the next ten years. Meantime the problem of student shortage will occur in colleges, and some colleges will face the crisis of survival in future. According to the predictions, the school-age population of senior high school will decrease first and then increase in the next ten years, which will have a profound impact on the rate of senior high school graduates entering the higher education in future.The paper starts from the regular higher education, and using the method of trend extrapolation and the basic education law, the scale of regular higher education in Hebei Province is predicted and analyzed. Then, this article makes further research on the prediction of the whole scale of higher education in Hebei Province, using the methods of interpolation, correlation analysis and regression analysis. After that, the article analyzes the development adaptability between the regular higher education and the regular senior high school education according to the rate of regular senior high school graduates entering the higher education.Upon analysis, the main conclusions of the future development tendency of the higher education in Hebei Province are as follows. First, the enrollment scale of regular higher education will continue to expand, but the growth rate of enrollment will fall steadily which will tend to be reasonable. Secondly, influenced by the rapid decline of school-age population scale of higher education, the gross enrollment rate of regular higher education will increase substantially, from 18.41% of 2010 to 49.73% of 2020. Thirdly, affected by the changes of school-age population, the gross enrollment rate of higher education in Hebei Province will reach 40% by 2014.Thus, the goal proposed in the "national medium-term and long-term plan outline for education reform and development" will be finished six years ahead. And the rate will exceed 50% by 2018. So the higher education in Hebei Province will enter the new universalization stage in the year of 2018. Fourthly, the rate of regular senior high school graduates entering the higher education will rise substantially, more than 10 percentage points compared to that of 2009. And the graduates scale of regular senior high school will not meet the enrollment scale of regular higher education in the years from 2016 to 2020. Thus, the problem of enrollment shortage may occur in future, and some colleges will face the crisis of survival. The next decade is the optimal period to improve the quality and to adjust the structure of the higher education after the enrollment expansion.