Chen Lie (1996)

The book contains eight chapters. Each chapter invites cross-national evidences of higher education under market economy. Chapter 1 deals with the relationships between market economy and higher education in three distinctive ways, namely from an international point of view, through a process of historical transformation and in the format of research methodological framework. Chapter 2 focuses on the relationships between the organization structure and operation mechanism and developmental trends of higher education system under market economy within three national models. Chapter 3 concerns the structure, formulation principles, and laws governing regulative functions and their disadvantages of higher under market economy. Chapter 4 scrutinizes national government’s intervention into market economy of higher education by exploring its occurrence conditions, structure, means and nature.

Chapter 5 investigates historical development and running mechanism of autonomy of higher education systems under market economy and its constraints. Chapter 6 discusses three types of running modes of higher education under market economy: input-output mechanism, productive structure and quality assurance. Chapter 7 outlines two reform paths and their development of higher education under planing economy. Chapter 8 explores the future development of China’s relationships between socialist market economy and higher education by considering their theoretical and practical dimensions. Abstract (302 English words, cited from the book, pp. 1-2):

The world has now entered a period marked by the great expansion of market economy. Viewed as a whole, there exist universal laws and general characteristics between market economy and higher education in the developed Western countries with market economy. The three basic forces, i.e. market adjustment, state control and institutional autonomy, have formed a tension which exerts its impact upon the operation of higher education in market countries. Each of these countries, however, has chosen different forms of combination according to its own specific needs and conditions, in order to optimize their function in the operation of its higher education. Nowadays there have emerged two trends in reform in countries with traditional planned economic institutions: one is to adapt market economy on the precondition of abandoning public ownership, whereas the other is to practice market economy on the premise of adhering to public ownership. There are two different reform strategies have given rise to different modes of relationships between market and higher education. The present book brings a few tentative models, both in theory and practice, for building up the relationships between socialist market economy and higher education.

The research reveals, viewed either vertically in terms of historical activities or horizontally in terms of modern social activities, the relationship between market economy and higher education is a relationship under the impacts of multiple factors rather than one that is direct and linear. Such intermediary factors as politics, economy, culture and science are all important refracting forces in the relationship between market economy and higher education. The interaction of all multiple factors and their unbalanced impact have led to a variety of relationship between economy and higher education in the world today. The multiple-factor approach is a key method the author uses for exploring the relationship between market economy and higher education.

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