Economy and education are the two major basis for the development of modern society, especially in the era of knowledge-based economy, education is closely linked with social economic development, higher education, as a higher level of education, its relationship with the economic development has also been a focus in the study of education economics. This article adopts the grey correlation analysis method, selects the time series data from 2000 to 2010 of Tianjin as data resources, and studies the relationship between higher education and economic development in Tianjin, Then we come to the conclusion through the analysis that the development of higher education and regional economy influence each other., regional GDP and residents' disposable income as well as the industrial structure all have different degrees of influence on the development of higher education in Tianjin, among them, the influence of industrial structure is the largest, followed by the regional gross domestic product, and the residents' disposable income has the least influence.
