There are many higher education institutions in China. By September 2021, there were 3,012 colleges and universities, with over 40 million students enrolled in mainland China. More than 40 million Chinese students graduated from university from 2016 to 2020. Corresponding with the merging of many

public universities A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national university ...

, has been the rapid expansion of the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

in mainland China since 1990s. Although private university enrollments are not clear, one report listed that in 2006 private universities accounted for approximately 6%, or about 1.3 million, of the 20 million students enrolled in formal higher education in China. The quality of universities and

higher education in China Higher education in China is the largest in the world. By the end of 2021, there were over 3,000 colleges and universities, with over 44.3 million students enrolled in mainland China and 240 million Chinese citizens having received high educatio ...

is internationally recognized as China has established educational cooperation and exchanges with 188 countries and regions and 46 major international organizations, and signed agreements with 54 countries such as the United States, British, Australia and Germany on mutual recognition of higher education qualifications and academic degrees. As of 2023, China had the world's highest number of top universities. In 2017, China had the highest number of scientific publications. As of 2022, China had the largest number of universities (338) including in the 2022-2023 U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities. More than 2,500 universities in China are included in the

Webometrics Ranking of World Universities The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of Universities, is a ranking system for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web content (number of web page ...

. Regardless of a variety of rankings about universities in China, the

Ministry of Education of China The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China is a cabinet-level department under the State Council responsible for basic education, vocational education, higher education, and other educational affairs across the country. The Mi ...

List by regions

Municipalities

Provinces

Autonomous regions

Outside Mainland

See also

References

Further reading