Peking University, Nov. 16, 2012: The second section of panel Ⅲ, “Higher Education Finance,” was held at Beijing Conference Center on Nov. 3rd. A number of domestic and international scholars attended the conference with their latest research findings.
Professor Isak Froumin from Higher School of Economics, Russia, spoke on the topic “Changes in Structure of the Higher Education System: From Planned Economy to Market Forces (Russia Case).” He introduced the structural transformation that Russian higher education system went through during the transition from planned economy to market economy, mentioning the existence of three key groups of universities: higher education institutions (HEI) out of territorial-production, HEI established according to the industry-specific or sectorial principle, and classical universities. He believes that the government should take a leading role during this process.
After that, Professor Motohisa Kaneko from University Of Tsukuba, Japan, compared the modes of Japan, US, and UK in his speech “Market and Government in Higher Education: An International Comparison at around the Turn of the Century.” He showed the landscape of higher education among OECD countries, saying that along with the slowed-down economic growth and the second expansion of higher education under the context of globalization and industrial changes in the last twenty years, there led to the consequences of inequality and lack of quality. Then, he mainly analyzed three cases: US, UK, and Japan. In the conclusion he reached, he pointed out that to deal with the issue US has applied strategies such as government-induced marketization, introduction of student loans, deregulation by government, and mobilization of market resources; while UK has chiefly made a shift from the contract-evaluation model to planned marketization; and at the same time, incorporation of national universities and the demand-led growth of student loans have been the two major methods adopted by Japan.
Professor Gai Che-Sheng, Professor Masayuki Kobayashi, and Professor Liu Wenjun all shed light on the subject of the students’ personal burdens. Professor Gai Che-Sheng, Tamkang University, Taiwan, China, suggested that measures should be taken to improve the “affordability” of the students’ opportunities to receive higher education. His speech under the title“Higher Education Students Attended, School Affordability, and Cost Sharing In Taiwan” covered solutions such as to bring down the tuition and other appendix fee, to lower the standard of reduction, and to encourage students to take part-time jobs. Meanwhile, Professor Masayuki Kobayashi and Professor Liu Wenjun from the University of Tokyo, Japan, sharing the topic “Access and Cost-sharing in Japanese Higher Education: Tuition and Student Financial Aid Policy,” mentioned that the cost of education, to many Japanese families, remains one of the most important expenditure. In order to promote the sustainable development of higher education, the Japanese government has launched several tuition reduction projects.
Different from other scholars, Professor Jill Johnes from Lancaster University, UK, analyzed several groups of data to examine the measurement efficiency and alternative investment in the time of the expansion of higher education.
Other scholars, such as Professor Qu Shaowei and Professor Shen Hua, concentrated on domestic issues in China and offered several suggestions for the government to improve the student financial assistance policy in the post-crisis era.
Reported by: Guo Caichen
Edited by: Zhao Ning, Zhang Jiang
