Changes in the affordability of 4-year public higher education in China during massification

This study investigates how the affordability of 4-year public higher-education tuition in China changed during the massification period. To conduct an in-depth analysis, this paper examines a wide range of data from the National Bureau of Statistics and adopts a series of measurement indicators, including average tuition as a percentage of per-capita GDP, its share in per-capita disposable income and family savings, and its ratio to financial aid. First, this study concludes that during massification, college affordability rapidly declined and then continuously increased. While for a significant majority of Chinese families college tuition is not an unbearable financial burden, it remains expensive for households in the lowest-income quintile. Second, this paper sheds light on the gap in residents’ ability to pay higher-education tuition between urban and rural areas, different regions, and different income groups. It finds a rapid widening in the gap in these dimensions during the early years of massification, which in recent years has gradually narrowed. Indeed, the mode of Chinese higher education has quickly transformed from “high tuition and low aid” to “low tuition and high aid.”