Nation seeks to elevate its higher education system

The State Council, China's Cabinet, has proposed moderately expanding the scope of the "double first-class" initiative to increase the supply of high-quality higher education resources, according to a report submitted on Monday to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation.

Officially launched by the Chinese government in 2015 as a major national strategy to enhance the global competitiveness of its higher education system, the "double first-class" initiative aims to cultivate a group of world-class universities and first-class academic disciplines by the mid-21st century. Under a dynamic selection process, the current second phase, running from 2022 to 2027, designates 147 universities for development.

Institutions included in the initiative have expanded undergraduate enrollment and now train more than 50 percent of the nation's master's students and nearly 80 percent of doctoral students, the report said.

They have also achieved a series of original breakthroughs across multiple fields, increasingly serving as a major force in basic research and a key source of major scientific and technological innovation.

The central government has prioritized the development of these universities. From 2021 to 2025, it allocated 181 billion yuan ($25.7 billion) from general public budgets, leveraging more than 110 billion yuan in local fiscal inputs to support universities in accelerating their pursuit of world-class status, the report said.

At the same time, regional governments have focused on supporting more than 400 local high-level universities and over 1,300 distinctive academic disciplines.

Looking ahead, the report emphasized the need to strengthen standards while moderately expanding the "double first-class" initiative. It also called for increasing the supply of high-quality higher education resources, orderly expanding enrollment in high-quality undergraduate programs, scaling up postgraduate training, and steadily raising the proportion of doctoral students.

The report outlined plans to accelerate the establishment of a higher education fiscal investment mechanism that adapts to demographic trends.

This includes continuously monitoring changes in the college-age population and conducting forward-looking research to optimize resource allocation, with the aim of supporting universities in expanding enrollment and navigating population peaks smoothly.

Moreover, the report said reforms will be pushed to guide universities toward developing distinctive strengths in different areas to better meet the need for cultivating diversified talent.

From 2021 to 2024, a total of 3.78 trillion yuan in government spending was arranged for the development of higher education, the report said.

With strong financial support, China has built the world's largest higher education system and entered a stage widely recognized as popularized higher education. The gross enrollment ratio in higher education reached 60.8 percent in 2024, up 6.4 percentage points from 2020. The population with a university-level education now exceeds 240 million.