Guest Editors' Introduction

The 1995-2000 Reform of Higher Education, in the language of official documents, was aimed at improving resource distribution and administrative efficiency, raising the scientific level and creativity of academic work, and meeting social demand and needs. The means for accomplishing these higher education objectives were given as construction, modification, cooperation, and consolidation. The national developmental goal of the education reform was to establish a socialist market economy and educational resources. Indeed, there has been much consolidation of institutions and resources, but perhaps the most pronounced reform has been in the area of privatization, referring here to the method of financing higher education rather than ownership. Since 1994, when the State Education Commission (SEC) started with forty-six pilot colleges and universities, the "pay-to-learn" policy has been implemented gradually nationwide.