Survey On Disparity Of College Choice Among Freshmen With Different Background

In recent years, the competition of higher education market is increasingly fierce, and subjective awareness among students is strengthened constantly. It has been widely concerned by admissions offices of higher education institutions (HEIs) and the whole society on how to recruit excellent students and how to choose suitable HEIs. In China, there is little empirical study on college choice until now. In this study, a survey, which is a part of "Research Database of Higher Education in China", was carried out among 47170 freshmen of grade 2007 in 175 HEIs of 31 provinces in mainland of China. After analyzing the disparity of college choice among freshmen with different background, the thesis tries to expose what kind of disparity exists when students from different families choose HEIs, and to provide some advice for HEIs to improve their recruit performance and education service.Based on the relative study in U.S., mainland of China and Taiwan, the thesis exercise Rational Choice Theory and Cultural Reproduction Theory comprehensively, and make a full-scale investigation and analysis on disparity of college choice among students from different resident regions, social strata, economic background and cultural background respectively. Finally, it provides some advice for HEIs to improve their internal functioning mechanism, and it also exposes several problems existing in HELs for further study.The main conclusions in the study include: First, by inspecting the influence of family features on college choice with the method of partial correlations, it finds out there is a linear correlation between the results of college choice and students' family situation (social strata, economic and cultural background), and the correlation coefficient is computed highest between family economic situation and result of college choice. Secondly, college choice is a process that students choose the most suitable HEIs according to their personal resources, needs and interests, and it's also a process that family cultural capital and groups' habits are brought into play objectively. The disparity of college choice among students with different background reflects the function of both students' rational choice and the power of cultural reproduction. Thirdly, among 16 elements probably influencing college choice, the first five most important options hold a common recognition among student with different background: job prospect, admission score, fame of disciplines and majors, faculty, and school reputation, and the six least important options include: influence of teachers in middle schools and non-kinfolks elders; influence of classmates, friends and senior students; special projects, far distance from home; short distance from home; family members in certain college. Fourthly, there still exists some disparity on the importance of elements influencing college choice among students with different background. Compared with rural students, urban students think highly of parents' and other family members' advice, but rural students more emphasize tuition and living cost; students from high strata and middle strata more regard parents' and other family members' advice as important, and put less attention to tuition and living cost; the higher family economic level is, the lower students think tuition and living cost as important to college choice; the higher parents' educational level is, the lower students value job prospect, tuition and living costs, and the higher students put stock in parents' and other family members' advice. Finally, through the method of factor analysis, the thesis finds out the factors influencing college choices among freshmen with different background include: features of HEIs, other people's advice, origin of resident regions and educational background; HEIs' advertisement; special project and HEIs' admission scores. Although disparity of the factors' importance to different groups exists, the self features of HEIs greatly influence college choice to almost all students.