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He Huifeng

Five research-intensive universities in China that are heavily reliant on funding from philanthropic tycoons are expanding enrolment – doubling it in some cases – and adding hot tech majors.
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.
Fuyao University of Science and Technology (FYUST), founded last year by the billionaire founder of Fuyao Glass Industry Group, Cao Dewang, in Fuzhou, the capital of southeastern China’s Fujian province, will double its undergraduate admissions to 100 – from eight provinces – in September, according to its website. It admitted its first undergraduates last year.
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.
Eastern Institute of Technology, a university in the eastern port city of Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, funded by semiconductor mogul Yu Renrong, expanded its undergraduate intake to 130 students this year, up from 70 last year, while doubling its majors from four to eight, including big data management and applications, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, AI and integrated circuits.
Westlake University, founded eight years ago in Hangzhou, Zhejiang’s provincial capital, is extending its undergraduate recruitment into the provinces of Anhui, Jiangxi and Shandong for the first time this year.
FYUST, established with a 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) donation from a charitable foundation backed by Cao, has attracted public attention following comments attributed to its founder that it should gradually become financially self-sustaining.
Echoing Cao’s comments, FYUST president Wang Shuguo said in an article posted on the university’s WeChat social media account that: “If a department cannot even support itself, it suggests it is not solving real-world problems. If research results cannot be commercialised, either the research is detached from reality or the technology lacks competitiveness.”
Wang described FYUST’s model as a mechanism to encourage closer links between research and industry.
Xiong Bingqi, director of the Beijing-based 21st Century Education Research Institute and an authority on Chinese education policy and reform, said it was unclear whether the commercialisation of research could help such universities expand.
He said FYUST’s funding could be rapidly depleted given the costs normally associated with research-led universities.
Xiong said high-level faculty recruitment and cutting-edge research could not be sustained by an endowment alone, and research-intensive institutions required long-term, sustained investment in faculty recruitment, laboratories and scientific research.
Yin Yue, the mother of a high school student in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China’s Guangdong province, said families she knew were aligning their children’s education options with national policy priorities but preferred universities with solid balance sheets.
“Financial strength matters,” she said. “If these universities cannot demonstrate stable long-term funding, it will affect the willingness of parents like me to let their children apply.”


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Newcomers began admitting undergraduates last year and are now vying with older institutions for tuition fee revenue


Newcomers began admitting undergraduates last year and are now vying with older institutions for tuition fee revenue.


Why China’s billionaire-backed research universities are looking for more money

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Newcomers began admitting undergraduates last year and are now vying with older institutions for tuition fee revenue

Newcomers began admitting undergraduates last year and are now vying with older institutions for tuition fee revenue