The Study On The Differences In Access To Higher Education From Families Of Different Social Levels

Chinese higher education began to massively expand since1980s and got into the popularization stage gradually, in which process social stratification as an inevitable factor had various impacts on it. Higher education is no longer a scarce resource for the masses, but quality higher education is. How to allot the resource more reasonably among different social levels has always been the primary concern of vast number of people. The paper offers studies on entrance opportunity, living and studying condition and employment expectation after graduation of the students of five colleges in Gansu province, who are from different social levels, and aims to eventually narrow the difference in higher education entrance opportunity of different social levels.This paper gives an investigation into the current status of higher education entrance opportunity of500students of five universities in Gansu province using the questionnaire "The differences in higher education entrance opportunity of students from different social levels" and the "ten social strata" theory of Mr. Lu Xueyi. Firstly the study illustrates the overall situation of these target students, and then analyses the differences in entrance opportunity, attending majors, living and learning condition and employment expectation of college students from different social levels by analyzing the data. The results of these studies are as follows:(1) There are differences in higher education entrance opportunity among students from different social levels. They enter into different kinds of universities; those who come from the upper classes account for a much bigger share of key universities than those who are from the lower and middle classes; and the specialties they major in differ; students from the middle and upper classes families of "national and community managers","technical personnel","private entrepreneurs" and "some self-employed businessmen" have dominant advantages in specialties.(2) There are differences in political status and the post of students leaders for college students from different social levels in their learning and social activities. In general, there are no differences in the club activities they join in and scholarship they win, but the type of club activities and the level of scholarship.(3) There are no significant differences in employment expectation among graduates from different social levels, such as what kind of job to do, stable or not, where to work, how to get the job, but how much to get. Graduates from the upper classes expect much more monthly income than those who are from the lower classes. No graduates from families of "national and community managers","technical personnel" and "business executives" check the boxes of monthly income that is1000-2000.