Comparative Study Of The Higher Education Funding System

Higher Education Funding System has become one of the issues of common concern in worldwide education fields. Under the background of higher education popularization, the tuition is climbing and the number of college students rise unceasingly. Since the fiscal payment ability of the government has declined relative to students'quantity, there has been a big increase in the number of college students from poor family. The conflict between the rapid enlargements of students with financial difficulties and the decreasing fiscal payment capacity is gradually protruding obvious. The existence of these contradictions is not only related to social justice and fairness, but also a more stable and the national relationship of social development.To address the increasing conflicts between the growing numbers of students with economic difficulties and the decreasing fiscal payment capacity, Higher Education Funding System has been established around the world. At present, although Funding system has been established in our country, there are still many problems and inadequacies. In some developed countries such as the United States and Japan, the Funding system is relatively perfect and the effective solution has been formed, and these experiences could bring great benefit of references to us.This paper introduces the success experiences of Higher Education Funding System in the United States and Japan. It has carried out a systematic analysis and comparison on Higher Education Funding System in the United States, Japan and China in a comparative perspective, and hope to bring some inspirations for the reform and improvement for the Higher Education Funding System of our country.This paper is divided into five chapters, details contents are as follows:Chapter1: An overview introduction of Higher Education Funding System. The basic theoretical foundation and basic elements of the Funding System are described in this chapter. Three major theories of funding in educational economy are detailed stated which are Theory of Educational Opportunity Equity, Theory of Education Cost Sharing and Theory of Human-capital Investment Rate of Return. On the basis of these theories, the elements of Higher Education Funding are investigated in five sections: funding financing source, funding methods, funding criteria, funding business entities and funding purpose.Chapter2: Introduction of the Higher Education Funding System in China. This chapter discusses the evolution of Higher Education Funding System of our country, the maturing funding system, the funding system implementing procedure and the problems and inadequacies in the process of implementation.Chapter3: Introduction of the Higher Education Funding System in the United States. This Chapter researches the elements of U.S. Funding System, and gives a brief analysis and summary of the characteristics of American Higher Education Funding System. Aiming at the problems and inadequacies of the funding system of our country, this paper makes comparison between the systems in these two countries to acquire the successful experience and draw recommendations for improvement.Chapter4: Introduction of the Higher Education Funding System in Japan. This Chapter researches the elements of Japan Funding System which is Government Subsidized Student Loan, and gives a brief analysis and summary of the characteristics of Japan Higher Education Funding System. Aiming at the problems and inadequacies of the funding system of our country, this paper makes comparison between the systems in these two countries to acquire the successful experience and draw recommendations for improvement.Chapter5: This chapter introduces perfection and improvement of the Higher Education Funding System of our country. A set of funding recommendations suites to China has been put forward with focusing on the problems in our funding system of higher education and summing up the United States, the Japanese-funded system's successful experience.The recommendations are listed as follows: formulating a higher education funding mode with characteristics of the "aid package";formulating a scientific identification standard and assessment procedures for the students from poor families; multi-funding and increasing investment in subvention;Making the university's information public and equitable; improving the government subsidized student loan policy and carrying out in-school student "credit education" in the implementation process.