Any educational venture with China must be looked at from a business perspective, and faculty should focus on academic quality issues and be included in the academic developmental process right from the beginning. Find a business partner that is well financed, has government connections, has a willingness to wait long term for a return on investment, and has a keen interest in benefiting Chinese society. [1]

Be prepared to fight for market share along with institutions from Europe and Australia. To be successful takes strong promotional efforts, requiring substantial investments in advertising and sales, as well as in building an educational product that meets Chinese market demands. [2]

There is a tongue-and-cheek saying that signing a contract in China is only the first step in the negotiation process. This is a very different business climate. [3]

China is able to support higher education for only a small portion of its population, but it is also building universities at an astronomical rate of speed. Finding partnerships with universities, using their facilities, as well as building additional campuses, can be accomplished under the right circumstances. [4]

Mentoring Chinese institutions, with a focus on improving and/or westernizing its domestic higher education system and programs, could be a good strategy for U.S. higher education institutions. [5]

"Both Chinese higher education and foreign higher education partners are embarking on a period of unprecedented expansion and innovation. The development of mass higher education and transnational provision in emerging economies will play out on no bigger stage than China."  [6]

Expect stronger economic competition, and more military stresses and conflicts between the U.S. and China. The U.S. media and political leadership need to educate the American public about the Chinese in a way that builds cultural and economic bridges, not by stressing narrow-minded, myopic defense-oriented perspectives. U.S. institutions can play a major role in such bridge building and ultimately help to bring about world peace. [7]

The relatively new "Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools," is a must-read for any educational institution thinking about moving into China. These regulations were decreed on March 1, 2003 and became effective on September 1, 2003. Since then, Chinese-foreign educational partnerships have increased dramatically. [8]

China is following in the footsteps of Singapore and Malaysia in that those governments have encouraged foreign higher education partnerships over the past 20 years and have been less supportive of large numbers of its student populations going abroad for their education. [9]

"The single thing that is most characteristic of China at the moment is simply that it is changing so fast that it is almost impossible to keep track of what is underway . . . The most successful Chinese have learned to adapt. They work along and in the margins of this change; they invent new rules even as they peer at and prod their new social order to try to figure out just who fits where." [10]

In 1982, 20% of Chinese provincial leaders had attended college. In 2003, 98% of Chinese provincial leaders had attended college. Also, "provincial leaders with educational experience overseas - as degree holders or visiting scholars - have emerged in almost every province-level administration in the country." [11]

A higher proportion (not a higher overall number) of United Kingdom and Australian universities, when compared to U.S. universities, have developed significant educational relationships with Chinese institutions in China. The vast majority of these relationships are completely face-to-face programs, and many are increasingly being enhanced by educational technologies. However, two fully online programs worth noting that have a U.S. link are an MBA and a MS in Information Technology offered by the University of Liverpool, whose technology partner was a firm out of the Netherlands, called K.I.T. e-learning, which was acquired by the Online Education Division of Laureate Education, Inc., based in Baltimore, MD. [12]

Three other newly established, private, foreign-owned institutions operating in China include Les Roches Jin Jiang International Hotel Management College, which is also part of the Laureate network; EasyCall International, an associate of the Boustead Group, out of Singapore; and the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, which is out of the UK. There are an estimated 700 private foreign-owned colleges and universities that have been approved by the Chinese government. These institutions fall under a variety of management and ownership models, including those that are majority or partially owned and operated by foreigners. [13]

Private education is priced above what many families can afford, "with some school fees topping RMB 30,000 (about $3,625 U.S. dollars) per academic year. However, economic progress has demonstrated that a significant number of families are willing to finance education options that provide a unique advantage for their children. This market is expected to increase rapidly as education quality and facilities are factored into the decision-making process." [14]

U.S. institutions are realizing a decline in Chinese students studying abroad due to U.S. visa restrictions and an increase of Chinese students studying in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia. [15]

Sixty-seven Chinese higher education institutions have been funded by the government to develop online learning. These institutions are called "network-education colleges" (NECs). "NECs are granted considerable autonomy over curriculum development and recruitment." [16]

In 2002, Peking University installed the first wireless campus in China. [17]

China has achieved a 9% average annual economic growth rate for more than 25 years, which is unprecedented in recorded history. During this same period of time, 300 million people have escaped poverty, and the average Chinese person’s income has quadrupled. [18]

By 2010, China will yield more Ph.Ds than the U.S. The quality of many of these Ph.Ds, however, is a growing concern. [19]

China produces four times the number of engineers that are produced in the U.S. [20]

The number of private cars in Beijing has risen by 140 percent, since 1997, to 1.3 million. [21]

The top ten places of origin with international students in the U.S. are India (79,736, up 7%), China (61,765, down 5%), Korean (52,484, up 2%), Japan (40,835, down 11%), Canada (27,017, up 2%), Taiwan (26,178, down 7%), Mexico (13,329, up 4%), Turkey (11,398, down 2%), Thailand (8,937, down 11%), and Indonesia (8,880, down 15%). Tuition dollars and cost of living expenses generated by international students in the U.S. totals about $12 billion. Sixty-seven percent of all international students are funded by family and personal sources; another 8% receive assistance from their home country governments or universities. [22]

In 2003, 52% of Chinese university candidates were accepted in colleges and universities, up from 2.4% in 1981. The total enrollment for public colleges and universities in China went from 6.43 million in 1998 to 12.14 million in 2001. [23]

"More aspiring presidents of Chinese universities hold master’s or Ph.D’s than in the past, and most current presidents have had the opportunity to visit or study in the West. These new presidents have more experience in higher education and a global perspective that helps them better understand China’s goals and problems."  [24]

ENDNOTES:

1. Peter Vander Haeghen, e-mail correspondence, June 30, 2005. (Vander Haeghen is a retired educator with a background in Asian-foreign higher education partnerships.)

2. Ibid.

3. Peter Vander Haeghen, personal communication, July 2005.

4. Ibid.

5. Richard Garret, personal communication, July 2005. (Garret is Deputy Director of The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education - http://www.obhe.ac.uk.)

6. "Higher Education in China, Part 1: Context and Regulation of Foreign Activity," Briefing Notes, The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, No. 12, July 2003, http://www.obhe.ac.uk/products/briefings/.

7. Peter Vander Haeghen, e-mail correspondence, June 30, 2005.

8. See the regulations at the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, as well as other important education-related regulations, at http://www.moe.edu.cn/english/laws_r.htm.

9. Richard Garret, op.cit.

10. Joshua Cooper Ramo, "The Beijing Consensus," The Foreign Policy Centre, May 2004, http://fpc.org.uk/publications/123.

11. Cheng Li, "Educational and Professional Background of Current Provincial Leaders," China Leadership Monitor, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, No. 8, Fall 2003.

12. Ibid. Also see "Laureate Online Education and K.I.T. eLearning B.V., The eLearning Partner of the University of Liverpool, Announce Name Change," November 2004, http://www.uol.ohecampus.com/pressreleases/291104.phtml, and "The University of Liverpool Launches the World’s First International Online Masters Programmes in China," February 20, 2002,
http://www.uol.ohecampus.com/pressreleases/022002.phtml.

13. Terry Hilsberg, e-mail correspondence, July 7, 2005. See the University of Nottingham in Ningbo at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/about/campuses/china.php, and Les Roches Jin Jiang International Hotel Management College at http://www.lrjj.cn/index.php?lang=en. (Hilsberg is president of NextEd - http://www.nexted.com.)

14. Alberta China Office, "APCO Report, China’s Education Sector," January 2005, http://www.albertachina.com/documents/english/APCO_Contents.htm.

15. Richard Garret, op.cit.

16. "Higher Education in China, Part 1: Context and Regulation of Foreign Activity," Briefing Notes, The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, No. 12, July 2003, http://www.obhe.ac.uk/products/briefings/. See also Weiyuan Zhang, Jian Niu, and Guozhen Jiang, "Web-Based Education at Conventional Universities in China: A Case Study," The International Review of Open and Distance Learning, January 2002, http://www.irrodl.org/content/v2.2/zhang.html.

17. Ibid.

18. Fareed Zakaria, "Does the Future Belong to China?" Newsweek, May 9, 2005.

19. Ibid

20. Bill Powell and Sonja Steptoe, "But Can China Innovate," Time Magazine, June 27, 2005.

21 Michael Elliott, "Small World, Big Stakes," Time Magazine, June 27, 2005.

22. "International Student Enrollments Declined by 2.4% in 2003/04, Graduate Student Enrollments Increased Slightly While Undergraduate Numbers Dropped," Open Doors 2004, the annual report on international academic mobility published by the Institute of International Education (IIE) with support from the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, November 10,2004,
http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=50137.

23. Xin-Ran Duan, "Chinese Higher Education Enters a New Era," Academe, American Association of University Professors, November-December 2003.

24. Ibid.