| Since the reform and opening up,China has been exploring a higher education management system suitable for China's national conditions and gradually formed a higher education management system with unified leadership of the central government management at the central and provincial levels and management mainly by provincial people's governments.Moreover,there are two types of higher education institutions in China,namely,central and local ones.The hierarchical management system is essentially the decentralization of the central government in the field of higher education,which to some extent improves the enthusiasm of local governments to invest in the field of higher education.The core of the hierarchical management system is the hierarchical fiscal expenditure and the central universities are wellfunded.Moreover,these central colleges and universities concentrate regional superior resources,and there are many favorable factors to support,such as policy support.As a result,the gap between central and local universities has become wider and wider.At the same time,the hierarchical management system has also led to differences in social identity between central and local universities.In October 2015,the State Council issued a "double-first-class" university project plan,which calls for the overall promotion of world-class universities and world-class disciplines.This plan not only emphasizes the importance of ensuring the quality of higher education again,but also is a creative attempt to break the gap between central and local universities.Based on the existing research,this thesis uses the methods of literature analysis,theoretical analysis and empirical analysis to analyze not only the development context of the hierarchical management system of higher education,but also the financial expenditure situation of central and local universities and its social effects.Its purpose is to put forward policy recommendations to optimize the two types of financial expenditure under the current hierarchical management system of higher education.On the basis of literature review,this thesis,from the perspective of hierarchical management of higher education,analyses the action logic of each subject in seeking funds,and reflects on the arrangement of higher education system in China.At the same time,through empirical test,this thesis measures the social effects of China's higher education financial expenditure in three dimensions: economic growth effect,urban-rural income gap effect and university operation efficiency effect under the hierarchical management system of higher education finance.On this basis,this thesis also draws lessons from the international experience model,designs and optimizes the strategy of higher education financial expenditure,and puts forward reasonable and effective policy recommendations.This thesis is divided into nine chapters:The first chapter is the introduction,which analyses and studies the realistic background and significance of higher education financial expenditure from the perspective of hierarchical management,explains the related concepts,and constructs the research ideas and methods of the full text.The second chapter sorts out and classifies the domestic and foreign literatures concerning the financial expenditure of higher education,and summarizes them from three perspectives: the study of government management mode of higher education,the study of financial expenditure differences and the study of financial effect of higher education and then points out the research perspective of this thesis.The third chapter not only analyses the theoretical basis of higher education financial expenditure,including fiscal decentralization theory,public goods theory,human capital theory,regional economic theory and new public management theory,but also concludes the theoretical basis of higher education financial expenditure,which provides the oretical support for subsequent empirical research.The fourth chapter,from the perspective of hierarchical management,makes a comprehensive analysis of the mechanism of higher education financial expenditure from four aspects: the evolution of higher education policy,the current arrangement of intergovernmental higher education expenditure responsibility,the main decision-making logic under hierarchical management system and the effects caused by hierarchical management system,which lays the foundation for the following measurement of social effects of hierarchical financial expenditure.The fifth chapter makes a statistical analysis of the basic situation of the national financial higher education funds in various provinces and regions and the national financial education funds in central and local universities.On this basis,this thesis uses regional economic growth to reflect the social effects of the efficiency dimension of higher education financial expenditure,explores the heterogeneity of the impact of two types of university financial expenditure on regional economic growth brought about by hierarchical management.The sixth chapter not only makes statistical analysis on the per capita expenditure on education and the per capita budget of public finance,but also measures the difference between the national financial education expenditure and budget expenditure of universities in different regions by using the Theil index.At the same time,this chapter also adopts Gini coefficient to measure the difference between the per capita expenditure on education and the per capita public budget on education.On this basis,this thesis also explores and discusses the impact of the financial expenditure of higher education in central and local universities on the regional income gap between urban and rural areas.The seventh chapter takes financial and economic universities as the research object,analyses and studies the difference of funds utilization efficiency between central and local universities,and chooses inspection group as the virtual variable to investigate the two levels of government supervision and also analyses the significant impact of hierarchical supervision on funds utilization efficiency of universities.The eighth chapter draws lessons from the mode of decentralization of higher education in the United States,Germany,Switzerland,Japan and Russia,provides reference for optimizing the hierarchical management system of higher education and financial expenditure of higher education in China from the angles of expanding local administrative autonomy,cooperation between two levels of government,design of financial performance allocation and combining with regional and ethnic characteristics.The ninth chapter is a summary of the full text.This chapter puts forward some effective strategies and suggestions to optimize the financial expenditure of higher education from the perspectives of continuing to promote the construction of "double-first-class",expanding the "provincial-ministerial co-construction" universities in the west,implementing the performance allocation mechanism,and improving the special transfer payment system of higher education finance.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,the central government has adopted the strategy of "occupying high points" to stabilize the higher education system,but there is a regional imbalance when choosing the central universities and colleges,and a large amount of financial support to the central universities and colleges has made the local government and local universities and colleges have a strong demand to expand the disposable funds,thus the local universities and colleges have developed and strengthened by means of expanding enrollment and borrowing for the investment and construction of the universities and colleges,and the central government is required to take the initiative.However,due to the difference in financial capacity,the local universities ' social influence is hardly comparable to that of central universities.Second,under the hierarchical management system,the financial expenditure of local colleges and universities has a more significant positive impact on the local economic development than that of central colleges and universities.The reasons include:(1)the number of local colleges and universities in each region is relatively large,and the number of talents trained is relatively large.The financial expenditure of local colleges and universities has a more obvious effect on the local economic growth;(2)Local colleges and universities in each region have a stronger "region locking effect" than the talents trained by the central colleges and universities in the region,that is,local college graduates choose to find jobs in their university locations more after graduation,while the realization of the human capital value of the talents trained by the central colleges and universities has a stronger internal time lag,that is,central college graduates choose to continue their studies or choose research industries for employment more after graduation,and the deepening of human capital shows a stronger time lag for the regional economic growth;(3)Local colleges and universities have stronger cluster effect than central colleges and universities,which is easy to form "university city".Local government financial expenditure on local colleges and universities may have economies of scale,while central colleges and universities generally concentrate local advantageous resources.Central colleges and universities' financial expenditure may lead to some policy support from local government,while some policies sacrifice the short-term interests of local government,such as financial expenditure in other fields,which also restrains the promotion of central colleges and universities on local economic growth to a certain extent.Generally speaking,the move to devolve the autonomy of running schools to local governments has indeed effectively promoted the enthusiasm of local governments in investing in higher education,but the elasticity of local universities' financial expenditure to regional economic growth is still relatively small.In addition,the distribution of universities under the central government is not balanced,and its advantages in scientific and technological innovation and personnel training are obvious,resulting in the existence of universities under the central government making additional contributions to regional economic growth.Third,under the hierarchical management system,in the short term,the average public financial budget expenditure on education for students in central universities is more effective than that for students in local universities in narrowing the regional difference in per capita income between urban and rural areas.The reasons include:(1)the central affiliated colleges and universities have concentrated their advantageous resources and are able to provide students with higher education of better quality.The deepening effect of human capital is obvious.The students trained by the central affiliated colleges and universities are more competitive in society.However,the resources of the local affiliated colleges and universities are relatively limited and there are certain differences with the teaching quality provided by the central affiliated colleges and universities.As the central government has delegated power to the local authorities in the field of higher education,the local governments and colleges and universities pay more attention to the "inclusiveness" of higher education policies,and human capital is more extensive and less deepened;(2)the central belongs to the university entrance opportunity is more fair,with a stronger "Hero don't ask the source" attribute.Both urban and rural families can provide a relatively fair way to enter a higher school,while local colleges and universities have a relatively single way of financing.In order to ensure their own development,their sources of funding depend on their career income and operating income(such as tuition fees)in addition to finance,which is bound to increase the burden on students from rural families.Compared with central colleges and universities,their degree of opportunity fairness is relatively low;(3)The overall teaching quality level of central universities is relatively high,the heterogeneity difference among central universities is relatively small,and the difference among students trained is relatively small,while the teaching quality of local universities in different regions is relatively large,the types of schools have significant differences(specialized,ordinary,key undergraduate,etc.)and the differences in teaching levels are also relatively obvious,resulting in the limited effect of the average public financial budget expenditure on education of local universities on narrowing the difference between urban and rural per capita income.In the long run,since the implementation of hierarchical management of higher education in our country,the contribution of local universities' financial expenditure to narrowing the difference between urban and rural per capita income is higher than that of central universities' financial expenditure.Hierarchical management has played a positive role in inclusive higher education.Fourth,under the hierarchical management system,from the perspective of the fund use efficiency of financial sample colleges and universities in 2015-2017,there is a phenomenon of lower fund use efficiency in central colleges and universities compared with local colleges and universities.As a "surprise check" on the efficiency of the use of funds in two types of colleges and universities,the inspection team has to some extent formed administrative intervention on the operation of colleges and universities,which will make colleges and universities become very cautious in the use of funds.This is an important reason why government control has a negative impact on the efficiency of the use of funds.Compared with the existing research results,this thesis may have the following innovations:The first innovation: The existing research on the financial expenditure of higher education on regional economic growth and urban-rural income gap,but scholars have not distinguished the types of financial expenditure of higher education.Moreover,there are certain differences in the level of human capital and scientific research between the central and local universities,and the effects are bound to be different.This study divides the two types of fiscal expenditure into two categories,and considers their impact on regional economic growth and urban-rural income gap,and then reflects the impact of the current hierarchical management system of higher education on regional economic growth and urban-rural income gap.The second innovation: When considering the efficiency of higher education funds,most of the existing research samples are universities in a certain region or universities directly under the Ministry of Education.However,when the sample is a regional university or a university directly under the Ministry of Education,the disciplines set up by the sample are quite different and the comparability of output results is relatively low,and the results of Inter-school performance evaluation are not convincing.This thesis chooses Financial Colleges and universities as the research object,which can not only avoid the above problems scientifically and effectively.Moreover,because financial and Economic Colleges and universities also adopt the hierarchical management system of higher education,there are two types of colleges and universities,which can directly reflect the differences in the efficiency of the use of funds between different affiliated colleges and universities.At the same time,according to the relevant indicators of two-level government inspection and supervision,the author can scientifically and effectively measure the positive effect of government supervision on the efficiency of the use of funds in Colleges and universities,and then provide a new perspective for optimizing the financial expenditure of higher education. |
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