An Empirical Analysis Of Regional Differences In The Enrollment Of Higher Education In The Context Of College Expansion

The enrollment expansion initiated since 1999 paves the way for the accelerated development of higher education, which provides more opportunities for high school graduates to enroll in college. However, whether or not the expanded enrollment will necessarily lead to the equality of admission to higher education raises the attention of researchers.Along with the enrollment expansion, the regional disparity in admission is frequently neglected, but in fact this disparity is highly obvious among different regions.Based on former studies, this paper conducts an empirical analysis utilizing macro-statistical and micro-survey data, in order to investigate the state and trend of regional disparity in admission to general as well as high-quality higher education, which aims to comprehensively demonstrate the situation of regional disparity in admission to higher education in China since the enrollment expansion.This paper begins with a classification of 31 provincial administrative regions into three categories, which are regions with absolute superiority, relative superiority and relative inferiority, respectively. Based on the classification and utilizing statistical data, the Wilson score and Theil index for admission opportunity are calculated to reveal the change in regional disparity since the enrollment expansion. Simultaneously, the survey data from CGSS2008, CGSS2010 and CGSS2013 is analyzed through the binary logistic regression model to investigate whether or not the disparity and its change exist among different regions before and after the enrollment expansion, which is also cross validated with the analysis for statistical data.The results indicate that, currently, the disparity in admission to higher education is extremely significant, especially for the admission to high-quality higher education that allows the regions with absolute superiority to gain more advantages. Meanwhile, the enrollment expansion has a significant effect on narrowing down the regional disparity in admission to general higher education, and the reduced disparity is mainly from regions with absolute superiority and relative inferiority in the later phase of enrollment expansion. College expansion significantly increased the opportunities for high-quality higher education, but over the past decade, the change in regional differentiations of entrance opportunity for high-quality higher education is not significant but relatively stagnant. Therefore, we infer that the enrollment expansion only has a minor effect on the regional disparity in admission to high-quality higher educationIn conclusion, reducing the regional disparity in admission to high-quality higher education will be the main focus in the later phase of enrollment expansion.Therefore, the author suggests that the distribution method for admission scheme should be further refined to provide reasonable disparity compensation for regions with relative inferiority. Meanwhile, the overall quality of higher education as well as the admission to high-quality higher education should be fundamentally improved, which can promote the regional balance of admission to higher education in depth.