Chinese universities have just 10 years to prepare for a cliff-like drop in student enrolments, according to a sector leader.

He Zubin, the party secretary of GuangXi Normal University, by calling for ministers and institutions to begin preparing for the demographic nosedive, which is expected after decades of rapid higher education expansion.

While China’s elite Double First Class universities might be expected to maintain their recruitment or even to continue to grow, other less esteemed institutions might have to downsize to save resources, Professor Zubin warned.

Chinese leaders have long been concerned about the country’s ageing population and the increasing reluctance of young adults to have children. Writing in Higher Education Research with Duan Wenxing, a PhD candidate at his university, Professor Zubin highlights that the newborn population in 2022 was half that of 2016.

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The paper calculates that the 18-year-old population will remain relatively stable until 2035, because of the short-term effects of the last decade’s reforms allowing families to have more than one child, and that enrolments could peak that year at about 70 million.

After that, the university-age population will collapse, and enrolments could plummet to about 42 million by 2050.

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Qiang Zha, an associate professor in York University’s Faculty of Education, concurred with the pair’s analysis.

“Given China’s huge population base, this won’t become a significant challenge for those with a solid trajectory and status, say, the top 600 to 700 universities. The rest may gradually feel a chilly climate, unless China’s population would notably grow again,” he said.

“In view of the national strategic goals, I do not think the Chinese government would reduce its funding support to major universities with strategic importance and global competitiveness,” added Ka Ho Mok, vice-president of Lingnan University Hong Kong. “But I anticipate the Chinese government will call for stringent measures to further enhance the quality of research and enrichment of student learning.”

Professor Zubin’s paper presents a range of potential solutions, including driving up standards in schools and expanding higher education access to non-traditional and mature learners. He also suggests more support for universities in China’s less developed central and western regions, to narrow the gap in sector development, and greater efforts to share resources between institutions.

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Another prescription is recruiting more international students, but this remains a challenge for China following its lengthy Covid-19 shutdowns, with enrolments from the US and South Korea to have dropped by more than 90 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively.

“While internationalisation remains a potential strategy, Chinese universities generally do not have the same level of appeal as those in the US, the UK, Australia or Japan,” said Futao Huang, a professor in Hiroshima University’s Research Institute for Higher Education. “Moreover, due to cultural and language barriers, a vast majority of programmes provided in Chinese universities may need to be more culturally inclusive and offer more courses in English to attract a wider range of international students.”

York’s Dr Zha agreed. “A massive higher education system like China’s could never count on international students to fill out its classrooms. Instead, the government and institutions must work out the strategies based on its own soil,” he said.

“One alternative is to have more international collaborative programmes on offer in the mainland for attracting home students to stay in the country instead of going abroad for studies.”

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karen.liu@timeshighereducation.com