Hello, welcome to ROUND TABLE, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond.
I am Yeohong -lin. China's top universities are making more room.
More seats. More students.
More opportunities.
Or is it more pressure as well?
If getting into a top -tier school just got slightly easier, what does that mean for students, parents, and the job market?
Let's unpack the numbers, the reasons, and the real impact of this expansion.
For today's show, I'm joined by Ding Hong and Steve Hatherly.
Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
If you've ever dreamed of getting into Tsinghua University or Peking University but felt like your chances were about the same as winning the lottery, well, congratulations.
The odds just improved.
Slightly. But, before you start celebrating, let's break down why the country's top universities are expanding, who really benefits, and whether this is an academic golden ticket or just a game of musical chairs with more players.
So exactly what is happening, who is expanding, and what are they focusing on?
So recently several of China's top universities including say, Tsinghua, Peking University and Shanghai Zhejiang University and Renmin University of China, etc. They have all announced the plans to expand their undergraduate enrollment for the year 2025 and all these universities for your information are participating in this program or initiative called Double Forrester Class and, additionally, policies have been introduced to promote the expansion of the high -quality, undergraduate education.
Basically, Zheng Shanche, who is the head of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's economic planner, recently announced that building on last year's increase of 16 ,000 students, efforts will be made to add another 20 ,000 undergraduate students to the enrollment of these double forested class initiative universities.
So the bigger picture is that without China massively increased the university enrollment beginning in the late 1990s, those earlier initiatives were largely concentrated upon say regional or local universities and vocational colleges, but the current trends is more focusing on the elite schools.
You mentioned the concept of double first class.
Yeah, this is an initiative aimed at higher education development.
It's a strategy that was introduced by the government here in the country back in 2015.
And according to the Ministry of Education, it refers to the goal of building world class universities and world class disciplines.
The double first class.
aiming to enhance the overall strength and also the global competitiveness of China's higher education system.
So the numbers break down like this.
This enrollment expansion mainly focuses on 147 elite universities in the country.
These are the double first class institutions.
These schools represent the top 5 % of China's nearly 3 ,000, around 2900 higher education institutions.
There's a lot of them.
Yeah, so the numbers that we talked about in the beginning was at 20 ,000, that's going to be, it might be a little bit misleading because we, you might think, oh, that's all going to one or two or three schools.
No, these students will be divided among 147 universities.
So therefore that means enrollment increases from maybe 100, 50 to, maybe 500.
So they'll be broken down like that.
But it's not going to be thousands and thousands of students all enrolling in the same school.
At the same time, if you consider the fact that these 100 to 500 students would also be distributed to different majors, different programs, it's really just, well, the chance of you getting into the top universities really improves just slightly.
Yeah, that's why you said slightly in the beginning, right?
Because it is more seats for students to sit in, but they are distributed among a lot of different schools.
Yes. And if you are familiar with the education system here in China, you might hear the key words double for double first class 9 8 5 2 1 1 if you have problem understanding the difference between all these different programs just understand it this way these are different programs including different still different top universities into that program and encouraging these universities to to continue to develop and giving them different projects but these are basically labels of really good universities here in China.
Yeah. And the double first class is the latest label.
It is the newest one.
And the institutions that have been designated under this initiative, they get extra national funding, they get extra resources.
And the key point, or one of the key points here is for the last 20 years or so, they've been largely excluded from the country's rapid expansion of university enrollment until until right now.
Exactly. So if we look at each and every individual university is what are some majors that they're adding?
Who are these extra 100 to 500 students?
Where are they going?
Now, for example, in the case of Tsinghua University, its plan is that it would boost undergraduate enrollment by 115 spaces this year.
It intends to open a new undergraduate college dedicated to developing some interdisciplinary skills for the artificial intelligence industry and other emerging areas.
I guess for True High University, that's really no surprise, given its...
if we think about its heavy focus on science and tech. And for Peking University, its plan is to raise, to raise the size of its incoming class by, also by 156 this year.
and several other prestigious universities like Shanghai Gaozong University, Renming University of China, and Hua Zhong University of Science & Technology based in Wuhan, Wunai University, they have also announced similar moves expanding their enrollment by somewhere between 100 and 500 places.
The additional enrollment spots are primarily allocated to some cutting -edge technology and emerging industries that are in pretty high demand and of course there we're talking about AI, integrated circuits, biomedicine, health care, new energy fundamental scientists, sciences and some interdisciplinary studies as well.
Some of these universities are also tailoring their expansion based on their strengths and their specialties.
For example, Peking University, they focus on fundamental disciplines and emerging fields, frontier fields, China Agricultural University obviously, focused on the agricultural industry, food security and related sectors there, and Yunnan University, they prioritize science and engineering and agriculture and medical disciplines.
Yes, Steve mentioned China Agricultural University, actually they're expanding their undergraduate program by 500 students and the focus will be on food security, like Steve mentioned, biomanufacturing, artificial intelligence as well and equipment manufacturing, green energy, sustainable development and food safety and human health, which actually coincides with one of our topics the other day about taking care of your body waste and be healthier and managing chronic disease as for the entire country.
So, these are all majors that you see them, you understand why they're there, you understand and why you need more talent in these majors.
Yeah, just off topic a little bit, but I found some news recently that I thought was really interesting, especially when compared to the headlines that I'm seeing from the West these days in terms of education.
This is from the Beijing Association of Science and Technology.
Recently, the Beijing Implementation Plan for promoting AI education in primary secondary schools, 2025 to 2027, was officially released.
So starting from the fall semester this year, all primary and secondary schools in Beijing will introduce an AI general education course with no less than eight hours per academic year covering all grade levels from elementary all the way up to high school.
Schools can offer it as a standalone subject or integrate it into different topics.
And then of course, the teaching methods will vary by educational stage.
For example, primary schools They'll be just learning, you know, experientially, if you will, playing with it, I guess, going up to high school where they'll emphasize cognitive courses to help students apply AI in learning and daily life.
And I just found that to be interesting because I thought, oh, okay, let me search and see in Canada, for example, are they teaching AI to elementary school students yet?
No, still debating about how to properly use AI in the classroom.
So that seems to be dominating there.
I found this to be fascinating because the whole point here is to get ahead of the game, right to nurture Future talent so but so by the time they get to these higher education institutions, they already have a solid base It's their language.
They're growing with it.
And for us. I already started I'm already starting to worry about not being able to communicate with my two year old son in five years he's gonna be like I you can talk to me via whatever strange new technology that I do not understand.
It's fascinating definitely.
And actually Ding He already mentioned that in 1990s that was the first time of expansion.
Actually in November 1998 there was this economist. He submitted a proposal to the central government in his personal capacity and he talked about China needed to, well he was actually rooting for doubling university enrollment at that time.
And he, his reasons were quite, um, I think solid.
He mentioned that at that time, the number of university students in China was far lower than in countries at similar stage of development.
He mentioned that the economic reforms at that time had led to a large number of laid off workers.
And if they enter the job market, just like that, without getting into any kind of specific education, it could create a quite a complicated situation.
And also he mentioned that at that time, universities has the capacity to accommodate more students, because on average, only seven students per teacher was the on average situation at that time in the 1990s.
And that leads to the huge expansion.
And actually, as a result, nationwide college enrollment reached 1 .6 million students, that was an increase compared to 1998 of 48 % growth.
That was a huge growth, and that actually marked the beginning of China's large -scale expansion of higher education system, transitioning the country from an elite model when it comes to higher education to a mass education model.
So that was 1998. but you can definitely imagine that that kind of expansion would also lead to challenges.
More and more people with higher education degrees enter the job market.
So in 2006, the country decided that in the future, we still need to expand higher education because we still want more people to be able to have access to more education and to more possibilities.
Yet they want the step to be relatively slower and steadier.
and that is why the next round of expansion of higher education actually happened in 2019 and that was focusing on vocational education.
Actually in 2019, China expanded enrollment in higher vocational education by approximately 1 .2 million students.
So that and also that at that round, the targeted enrollment groups was mainly from regular high schools and secondary vocational schools and also social candidates including migrant workers, laid -off employees, veterans, new type professional farmers, all these people.
But for this round we already mentioned that this round focuses on the top universities.
So what do you think triggered this round of expansion in higher education?
Well obviously this is aimed at serving China's MAGA National Strategic Goals.
I think that's the priority because for example on one hand we are there is a great need in terms of developing China's emerging tech fields like artificial intelligence quantum computing and food security of Of course, that's another big topic, domestically as well.
And I think the ultimate goal is to enhance China's global competitiveness in terms of science and technology.
So because here, we are talking about a bigger picture in which China is really massively increasing its investment human input into the science and technology.
If China wants to become a global powerhouse on science and tech, nobody else can help China judging from the current international geopolitical landscape.
Only China can help itself, this is a harsh reality, but we have to acknowledge it, so that's my take.
When you have emerging fields like this, then you need people, not just people, qualified people to work in those fields.
And you need to have people in the university programs learning about how those industries work.
And therefore, expanding these types of enrollments or creating new types of programs benefits the students, of course, because there's an increased opportunity.
It benefits the universities because their reputation will get an added little boost or bump.
But it benefits the job market too because you're going to have more qualified people and then industry as a whole because you have more options, more talent, coming in, to work in those fields and then making China more competitive on the global stage for those industries as well.
That's my take. And actually a couple of years ago, Qiu Xin, Party Secretary of Fudang University, also one of China's top universities, and it's located in Shanghai, he said that China's AI sector faces a total talent gap of 5 million and Shanghai alone will need 400 ,000 AI professionals by 2025.
At that time. That's a lot of people.
That's a lot of. In a short amount of time.
And he said, while local universities currently have only 40 ,000 students enrolled in related programs, at that time we kind of understand because I think in two years, three years ago, artificial intelligence was definitely not in the same stage or developing state of today.
It has rapidly developed.
Yet, when we look at the industry, when we look at related jobs, related companies, to one hand, we see really the prosperity in the market.
We see a lot of companies around the world, and also especially here in China, DeepSeek, we see a lot of those companies doing a really good job, not only in China, but world -worldly, the world class companies.
And these founders and the creating team, the tech team are really young people.
They are really talented people.
But if you want the industry to continue to expand, definitely we're going to need more talent.
Well, yeah. 100%. And this expansion of undergraduate enrollment is not a blind expansion, right?
This is not just saying, we are going to take this number of new students for anything whatsoever.
This is more of a targeted approach. It's a moderate approach, isn't it?
So some students and parents might worry that expanding enrollment at these top tier universities might dilute the high quality education resources that you may be flooding the market a little bit with more degrees.
But I think when we're talking about this kind of controlled expansion, this is 20 ,000 students across 147 different universities.
We're talking an increase in enrollment of 100 to 500 students per.
I don't, I understand the concern from parents and students, but I wouldn't say there's too much to be concerned about there.
Yeah, the dilution of the quality.
Yeah, so a couple of years ago I noticed the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a reform plan to adjust to the curriculum on Chinese universities.
Basically the goal is that by this year 20 % of existing disciplines and programs should be adjusted.
Basically new disciplines should be introduced to align with the emerging technologies and of new economic models while those outdated programs should be phased out.
So of course, the discipline on new technologies are expanding, but in the meantime, there is really no denying that disciplines on liberal arts like human humanities studies or social sciences, these subjects are on a shrinking trend.
Of course, this phenomenon is not only limited to Chinese universities it's a arguably a universal or a global phenomena but in China we can take a look at a few cases for example in Fudan University it has a plan to slash the portion of liberal arts students down to 20 % from somewhere between 30 and 40 % previously for this year's undergraduate enrollment and Fudan is not alone.
So, my take is that, this does not suggest that liberal arts are no longer important in China nowadays.
I think they are still important, but China doesn't want to see redundancy in these areas in these subjects.
For example, if you are a science and tech university, then there is absolutely no need for liberal arts majors to be existent in your university, that's my taste.
So yeah, so with smaller scale, liberal arts can actually pursue higher quality development.
I wanna ask you this, with the technology developed to this stage with open courses online, so many different ways to learn, do you think we still need to?
Because if it's for example, science related majors, you need to do experiment, experiment.
You need to be in a laboratory and maybe you need a huge, huge computer so you can conduct whatever experiment you're doing.
But for liberal arts majors, is it, can I say that liberal arts students or for those who are interested in liberal arts, they can even study by themselves or through remote ways or maybe even as a hobby?
you mean the future of education if you're interested in liberal arts?
Yeah. This is debatable.
I think this is debatable.
For example, for on some liberal arts majors like Political Science or International Relations, you actually need to apply some scientific theory, for example, math, into this study in order to predict whether, say, relations between two countries will be on a smooth trajectory, et cetera, et cetera.
That's serious political scientists do.
So it's science. It's science.
Yeah, no, no. I don't think this is a good idea at all.
And I'm not just speaking about China.
If we were having this conversation about Canada, I don't want to create an entire country of computer scientists and AI programmers.
We still need creative thinkers.
Not that they aren't, I'm not saying that.
We still need artists.
We still, I remember when I was studying English literature in university and one of my poetry classes and you might think well poetry is a waste of time to study.
One of the aspects of studying poetry is looking back at certain decades of society and looking at it as a cross section of humanity.
How people used to live at the time, how people used to think at the time, how culture has evolved over time to get from where it was and to where we are now.
Well, we need those types of people.
We need these types of programs in our universities.
Dinghong, I can agree with you in the aspect of, okay, well, maybe at this science and tech college, we don't need a poetry class.
Okay, fair enough. But if we use, you know, I think it was West Virginia University, recently cut...
was it 28 of their programs?
And one of them was music therapy.
And you know, for those people who are interested in that, simply doing it as a hobby, no, I I don't think that satisfies the world.
We need all kinds of people to make the world go round.
We're getting off topic here, but.
A little bit. But I kinda, I actually agree with you because I think when it comes to the course design, the curriculum design, what exact subject are you learning and how come you're learning in your first grade instead of fourth grade, there is like scientific design.
And it also comes down to why do we need higher education?
Do we need higher education so that after college, I can land on a safe job?
Or is it because we wanna nurture our knowledge, nurture who we are, nurture our spirit?
There are different ways to look at things.
And who knows? After maybe 20 years, when AI can take over a lot of things, at that time liberal arts students would actually be more important.
They might be more important because AI can do a lot of calculating, can do a lot of developing when it comes to scientific research and results, yet creating something, and creating something that cannot even be communicated with words.
You have to communicate with music, with art.
Those would be the valuable creation of human beings.
We talked about the addition to Beijing Elementary and Middle and High School students, and the creation of AI teaching.
Not just incorporating into the classroom, but teaching it.
That's great, as long as it's in addition to arts and philosophy and things like that, not in elementary school, but you see my point, not instead of, in addition to, not instead of.
Yes, and by expanding not only the elite university's enrollment seats, but also maybe in some other universities.
Yes, we're looking at more and more people with a higher education degree.
But that also means that the entire level of intelligence of knowledge level of the society of the country is improving, meaning that people can create more things, and they can communicate on a higher level, they can satisfy their life goals in a higher level.
And in my opinion, that is always a good thing.
And a bigger talent pool is great.
And we need the job market to also grow.
Besides, education is not just about getting into the best school, It's also about getting into the right one, the right one for you.
