Equity in Access to Higher Education : A Study Focused on China’s Hunan Province -- A Province With Sizeable Minority Populations

Abstract

Since the 1990s, higher education has undergone significant growth and expansion throughout the world, including China. This study aims to explore issues related to equity and access to higher education in China in the context of the expansion and fragmentation of higher education. There are two questions will be mentioned in this dissertation : (1) How social background which mainly is family socioeconomic status, the type of high school, home community, ethnicity and gender have impact on opportunities of higher education for students, including general public universities and elite universities in China? and (2) The voices of students, parents, teachers and the educational officials about the disparities in equity in higher education in China. This dissertation applied the qualitative method. The data collected from governmental education policy documents and public investigations. In addition to this, data is also collected from article and journals by systematic searching. The study found that the expansion of higher education did not reduce inequalities in access to higher education. There is a link between individual non-educational factors such as family SES, home community, gender and ethnicity, and students’ educational opportunities at the micro level. While at the macro level, the government policy such as college admission and examination mechanism is the dominant factor in access to higher education. Lastly, the study recommends that government policies should be optimized to alleviate inequalities in higher education, including examination mechanism, the HEI system, and the K-12 education system. Then future research should put more focus on students’ access to high school education and opportunities to continue higher education, such as postgraduate and doctoral education.