Why China’s billionaire-backed research universities are looking for more money
Newcomers began admitting undergraduates last year and are now vying with older institutions for tuition fee revenue
But they are vying with hundreds of better-known, larger and longer-established universities – some of which are also admitting more students – as they seek more revenue from tuition fees.
Whether the newer universities’ unusual moneymaking models will be able to support their long-term research ambitions is being questioned by some researchers and parents.
The newer universities, founded to tap into China’s national strategy of scientific self-reliance through education, attracted national attention last year when they enrolled their first undergraduate students. They originally set out with a greater focus on industry integration, applied research and commercialisation than on teaching undergraduates.
To seed the expansion, the website said the university had added five majors: future robotics, artificial intelligence, intelligent-vehicle engineering, biosciences and the digital economy.
Zhaopin.com, a Chinese online recruitment platform, said last month that job postings for AI engineers that targeted undergraduates had risen 31.1 per cent year on year in the first five months of the year, with demand for data engineers up 28.3 per cent and semiconductor engineers up 11.1 per cent.