Individual Rate Of Return To Investement In Higher Education: An Investigation In China

The structure of paying the cost of higher education has gradually changed in China from 1980s. That is to say, the government disbursed all the cost before, many communities including government, individual and so on, however, burden all the expense together now. Therefore, individual investment and the rate of return in higher education have been become an important research for scholars of China and foreign countries. Based on the previous literature of individual investment in higher education, this paper investigates and demonstrates the rationality of individual investment in higher education in our country using human capital theory, educational cost-sharing theory, the theory of educational investment, theory of educational production and labour market theory.In introduction chapter, The paper review the research and result investigated by scholars before. The importance of theory, policy and reality to investigate individual rate of return to higher education investment in China is illustrated in this chapter as well.This paper explain individual investment in higher education from the bases of theory of human capital, educational cost-sharing theory and theory of educational production in second chapter.We discuss the individual cost and return to investment in higher education in third chapter based on the theory research. The cost of individual investment includes direct cost, indirect cost and capital cost, while the return of individual investment involves economic return and non-economic return for individual and the families of these people who are accepted education. The analysis and comparison of two kinds of main methods, namely Internal Rate of Return and Mincerian Earnings Function are analyzed in fourth chapter.In fifth chapter,we estimate the rate of return in higher...