Can China's Higher Education Expansion Reduce the Educational Inequality Between Urban and Rural Areas?

China's higher education expansion policy implemented in 1999 has substantially increased higher education opportunities. This paper investigates whether rural students do benefit more from the expansion policy and achieve educational equity between urban and rural areas. Based on the four wave...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of higher education (Columbus) 2023-07, Vol.94 (5), p.638-663
Main Authors: Guo, Jiangying, Chen, Jiwei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Access to Education
China
Compensation
Compensatory Education
Education policy
Educational Development
Educational inequality
Educational Opportunities
Educational Policy
Elites
Equal Education
Fairness
Foreign Countries
Higher Education
Higher education expansion
Participation
Rural areas
Rural Urban Differences
Students
Urban areas
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Summary:China's higher education expansion policy implemented in 1999 has substantially increased higher education opportunities. This paper investigates whether rural students do benefit more from the expansion policy and achieve educational equity between urban and rural areas. Based on the four waves of nationwide micro survey data, collected in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, we find that the expansion policy increases the rural-urban gap in higher education participation in the short- and medium-term, but reduces the educational inequality in the long-term. However, when we examine the impact of the expansion policy on access to elite higher education, the results show that the expansion policy is not conducive to reducing the rural-urban gap in elite higher education participation. Therefore, to achieve educational equity between rural and urban areas, compensation policies should be designed to benefit rural students.
ISSN:0022-1546
1538-4640
DOI:10.1080/00221546.2023.2168408