Research On The Effect Of Tuition And Fees On The Higher Education Opportunity For Different Social Strata

With the expansion of higher education institutes in China, the tuition and fees of higher education institutes are still keeping rising. According to the Cost-sharing theory, reasonable tuition and fees do help to promote the equal opportunities for higher education. Although studies on the Cost-sharing theory and charge of tuition and fees have been plentiful, as well as many studies are concerning the equality of opportunities for higher education of different social strata, there are still few studies focus on the effect of charge of tuition and fees on the equal opportunities for higher education of different social strata. According to these previous researches, this study was conducted on the basis of a questionnaire survey of 13,873 undergraduates from 58 higher education institutes in 11 provinces. From the perspective of the effect of charge of tuition and fees on the equal opportunities for higher education of different social strata, this research analysis the actual burden of tuition and fees for undergraduates of different social strata and its effect on undergraduates' different attitudes towards them, in order to provide some piece of advice to promote more equal opportunities for higher education of different social strata.This study includes following four major parts. Firstly, literatures of the effect of tuition and fees on equality of higher education opportunities were reviewed. Secondly, based on the survey data, the actual burden of tuition and fees for different social strata and the deviation of opportunities for higher education of different social strata among six kinds of higher education institutes were analyzed. Thirdly, the factors, especially tuition and fees that influenced different social strata's choices of higher education institutes were analyzed and different attitudes of undergraduates' of different social strata in public and private institutes towards tuition and fees are compared. Finally, burden and effect of tuition and fees of various social stratifications, including gender, nationality, location of the family, as well as the socio-economy status of the family were compared and analyzed. The major ideas and conclusions of this study are as follows. First, according to the survey, the tuition and fees of each social stratum has mighty positive correlativity with the income of the family, which represents "the principle of ability to pay" of the Cost-sharing theory of higher education, which means who earn more should pay more. Second, there is a negative correlativity between social strata and the burden coefficients of tuition and fees, which means the lower the social stratum is, the bigger the burden coefficient is. Third, according to the analysis of the factors when students chose institute of higher education, the factor of tuition and fees has notable deviation of effects on student from different social strata. Fourth, generally, with the promotion of socio-economic status, the percent of stratification of the undergraduates with the present level of tuition and fees also increases. Fifth, from perspective of social stratifications, tuition and fees of higher education institutes are also affected by gender, location, the type of the family inhabitancy, the socio-economic status and so on. Further the analysis proves that there are deviations of the ability of undergraduates from different social stratifications to take the burden of tuition and fees of higher education institutes.