China is experiencing a sharp rise in college tuition fees as more than 20 provinces announce increases for the 2025 academic year, with hikes ranging from 10% to 54%.
In Shanghai and provinces like Sichuan and Jilin, annual tuition has increased by 20%. Yunnan University’s yearly tuition jumped 42%, from 4,200 to 6,000 yuan (US$585 to US$800), while Guizhou University’s tuition rose 30% to 6,500 yuan (US$900). Private institutions have raised costs even more, with some programs now approaching 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) a year.
The Ministry of Education’s budget for higher education this year dropped 4.7% to 114.3 billion yuan (US$16 billion) despite a record 12.22 million college students nationwide. Experts note that public universities are adjusting fees to reflect rising costs and reduced local government funding.
Deputy Director at Taiwan’s Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, Wu Chia-hsuan (吳佳勳), warned that the cost hikes are speeding up the “stratification” of Chinese higher education, increasing the gap in opportunities between rich and poor students. Wu says, “Even when tuition goes up, students still enroll, so running a school is a very profitable business,” but added, “After this round of tuition hikes, I believe China’s universities will become more polarized, and social stratification will intensify. When higher education becomes something average people can’t afford, wealthier students get better educations, while middle- and lower-income families have fewer chances to attend, widening the wealth gap and reducing social mobility.”
Fang-lian (方臉), a Chinese-Canadian social media commentator and social critic, noted that China’s “college fever,” which grew during the reform era, may cool down as tuition costs outpace wages and the value of a degree drops. They warn that if high-quality education becomes a privilege of the wealthy, social mobility could weaken, income inequality may grow, and tensions over fairness could rise. Without intervention, they say, higher education may lose its role as a path to upward mobility.
Radio Taiwan International 14/08/2025 17:46
Editor： Filip Leskovsky