The Research On Economies Of Scale In Subordinate Universities Of Ministry Of Education In China

Higher education has been regarded as an especial domain, then universities become material units with input and output. Along with scale enlarging, unit cost of educational output reduces, which is called economies of scale. Higher education of our country has come into a particular expanding period since 1999. Almost all the universities have enlarged in scale during several years' continuous tide of "enrollment expansion"and "amalgamation". The expansion of scale certainly results in variation of cost, which urges us to strengthen researching the economies of scale in universities. This paper discusses the economies of scale at present and brings out some related policies and suggestions. This paper had drawn some conclusions through demonstration analysis on economies of scale in subordinate universities of Ministry of Education. They are as follows: Firstly, after experiencing a fast expansion in scale, it is still efficient to run universities which subordinate to Ministry of Education; they have ray economies of scale. Then the differentia of regions and range of subjects don't have clear effect on total cost. Secondly, at present, almost all the subordinate universities to Ministry of Education have room to keep on expanding. However, different kinds of universities have diverse expansion ranges. Finally, in the given scope of research, the changes of ratio of "student to teacher" don't affect on total cost obviously. What's more, the gross faculty doesn't have effect on total cost, either. However, it should be noticed that the increase of ratio of "teacher to faculty" could boost the total cost distinctly. Under market economy, the enactment of moderate scale of a university should consider two important factors: realizing economy and improving output quality. Different kinds of universities have different scales because of different orientations, objects of development, allocation of majors as well as subjects. This paper puts forward some suggestions for future development of universities as follows: Firstly, government sectors should create reasonable institutional environment for universities to form moderate scales. Secondly, the important working point of universities should be transferred from expanding scale to improving quality. What more, universities should reform the internal management system deeply and realize the optimization of resource collocation.