Universities profit by selling names
By Liang Yiwen |
July 16, 2011, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SOME universities in China are earning millions of yuan by lending their names to private colleges and issuing student diplomas, the Changjiang Daily reported yesterday.
A number of public universities launched independent colleges by working with private enterprises in the late 1990s when China's education shifted its focus from an elite to a mass higher education system.
The independent colleges pay large sums of money to the universities to use their names to attract students, the newspaper said.
The "labeling fees" vary among different colleges. In many cases, the independent colleges give 20 percent of their tuition income to the universities, according to the Hubei Province-based newspaper.
Tuition costs from 10,000 yuan (US$1,547) per year for each student in most independent colleges. So a college with 10,000 students would pay at least 20 million yuan to its parent university a year.
"Universities are interested in launching private colleges because they lack funding," an anonymous former chancellor of an independent college told the newspaper.
Yang Deguang, former president of Shanghai Normal University, told the newspaper that government funding could only cover a third to a half of university expenditure.
In 2009, about a fifth of students in Hubei Province were studying at independent colleges. However, the newspaper said some colleges had little access to their parent university's resources despite paying large sums to use the name.
Some colleges, the newspaper said, questioned whether the universities were merely "selling diplomas."
Unnamed industry insiders quoted by the newspaper said that private colleges launched by public universities were a win-win strategy.
Relying on the fame of the university, private colleges could develop faster than their untitled rivals. Meanwhile, the public universities profited from the collaboration.
"Without independent colleges, public university's debts will increase," said Bie Dunrong, a professor of Institute of Education Science at Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
A number of public universities launched independent colleges by working with private enterprises in the late 1990s when China's education shifted its focus from an elite to a mass higher education system.
The independent colleges pay large sums of money to the universities to use their names to attract students, the newspaper said.
The "labeling fees" vary among different colleges. In many cases, the independent colleges give 20 percent of their tuition income to the universities, according to the Hubei Province-based newspaper.
Tuition costs from 10,000 yuan (US$1,547) per year for each student in most independent colleges. So a college with 10,000 students would pay at least 20 million yuan to its parent university a year.
"Universities are interested in launching private colleges because they lack funding," an anonymous former chancellor of an independent college told the newspaper.
Yang Deguang, former president of Shanghai Normal University, told the newspaper that government funding could only cover a third to a half of university expenditure.
In 2009, about a fifth of students in Hubei Province were studying at independent colleges. However, the newspaper said some colleges had little access to their parent university's resources despite paying large sums to use the name.
Some colleges, the newspaper said, questioned whether the universities were merely "selling diplomas."
Unnamed industry insiders quoted by the newspaper said that private colleges launched by public universities were a win-win strategy.
Relying on the fame of the university, private colleges could develop faster than their untitled rivals. Meanwhile, the public universities profited from the collaboration.
"Without independent colleges, public university's debts will increase," said Bie Dunrong, a professor of Institute of Education Science at Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
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