Text丨 Western Jun
The quantity and quality of universities have always been important indicators to measure the level of regional development.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Education issued the "Announcement on the Proposed Consent to the Establishment of Undergraduate Colleges and Universities", involving 9 colleges and universities in 7 provinces of Henan, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Zhejiang and Qinghai.
The specific list is as follows:
01
These 9 colleges and universities are all at the undergraduate level, except for one private, the rest are public.
There are several features that stand out.
First, Henan, as a depression of higher education, added 2 new schools, ranking first with Guangdong in terms of quantity.
As we all know, as one of the "four provinces of mountains and rivers", Henan's higher education resources have always been a prominent shortcoming.
Although the number of colleges and universities in Henan Province has reached 168, ranking first in the country, the quality is not high. There is only 1 211 Zhengzhou University in the province, and 985 universities are zero.
At the same time, there are 58 undergraduate colleges, accounting for only about one-third of the total, ranking 9th in the country, 20 less than Jiangsu, 10 less than Hubei, 12 less than Shandong, and even Liaoning Province, which has only half of the population of Henan, has 63 undergraduate colleges, far more than Henan.
Therefore, this time, Henan has added 2 new undergraduate colleges, although it is not a top university, but it can be regarded as a reversal.
Second, ordinary prefecture-level cities have been significantly tilted.
Among the 9 colleges and universities announced, except for Henan Institute of Physical Education, Shaanxi Police College, and Qinghai Vocational and Technical College, the rest are located in non-provincial capital cities.
One of the most striking should be Foshan.
As a city with a GDP of one trillion yuan, Foshan's higher education resources are far from its own economic strength, which has also become an important weakness for the improvement of the city's comprehensive energy level.
This time, Foshan Institute of Science and Technology was upgraded to a university and the former name of the school was restored to "Foshan University", marking that this economically strong city finally has its own "university".
And it is directly named after the city, which is worth looking forward to the "added value" brought by all aspects of the city.
The newly established undergraduate colleges and universities are inclined to ordinary prefecture-level cities, which is a positive signal for non-provincial capital cities.
After all, compared with provincial capitals, the higher education resources of non-provincial capitals are generally weak, and it is directly helpful to be able to add universities or upgrade junior colleges to undergraduate schools from the perspective of balanced regional development.
In recent years, the national level has pressed the pause button for colleges and universities to "run schools in different places", which is actually due to this consideration.
The tendency of universities from non-provincial capitals to move to provincial capitals will also be curbed.
Third, the number of vocational and technical universities increased.
Of the nine universities announced, three are vocational and technical universities.
In recent years, the Ministry of Education has clearly proposed to support eligible national "double-high plan" construction units to independently upgrade to vocational undergraduate schools, and the trend of "vocational education undergraduate" has accelerated.
This is especially good news for some provinces with more students and more vocational colleges, which means that the number of undergraduate colleges will increase rapidly, which is expected to take advantage of this counterattack.
02
In the past few years, the "rush for universities" has been extremely fierce in various places. Chongqing, Shenzhen, Qingdao and other cities can be said to be the biggest winners.
For example, as early as 2017, Chongqing made it clear that by 2020, it would strive to introduce more than 100 well-known universities, scientific research institutions and other innovative resources at home and abroad to settle in Chongqing in a variety of modes.
Some cities with higher education strength exceeding the level of economic development focus on preventing the "outflow" of college students they have trained. Typical examples such as Wuhan, Nanjing, Changsha, Xi'an, etc., have made it clear that they should improve the retention rate of college students.
According to the data, the number of college graduates in Wuhan has increased from 42.18% in 2016 to 65.12% in 2021, showing a year-on-year upward trend.
However, in terms of higher education, whether it is "grabbing universities" or "grabbing college students", the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" have the greatest comprehensive pressure.
In recent years, these provinces have also increased the introduction of universities and higher education research institutions.
Taking Henan as an example, in recent years, a number of first-class universities such as Harbin Institute of Technology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Wuhan University have announced the establishment of Zhengzhou Research Institute in Henan.
However, this kind of research-focused cooperation in running schools is relatively small, and due to the tightening of the policy of "running schools in other places", the space that can be tapped in the future may be relatively limited.
How to improve the strength of local universities may be the more critical thing.
Taking this year as an example, the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" have corresponding plans.
Shandong has made it clear that it will support Shandong University and other subordinate universities in Shandong to become world-class, promote the high-quality development of provincial universities, and do a good job in the enrollment of rehabilitation universities and the preparation for the establishment of aerospace information universities.
Henan has made it clear that it will start the construction of Henan University of Electronic Science and Technology, Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Zhengzhou University School of Medicine.
Shanxi proposes to promote the construction of "double first-class" of Shanxi University and Taiyuan University of Technology, and support the creation of "double first-class" in the advantageous disciplines of North University of China and Shanxi Medical University; Do a good job in the establishment of new undergraduate colleges.
Hebei pointed out that it will speed up the construction of the first batch of central enterprise headquarters, universities, hospitals and other projects.
03
However, due to the particularity of the layout and cultivation of higher education resources, it is not easy for a higher education depression like the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" to leap quickly.
You must know that some traditional colleges and universities are strong cities, and their profound heritage is basically a "gift" from history, and it is actually difficult to change the big pattern.
Last year, in response to the topic of "four provinces of mountains and rivers", the Ministry of Education had a clear response:
Support the central and western regions, especially the provinces with large populations, to expand the scale of higher education resources, and optimize the type and regional structure.
This has brought hope and encouragement to the "four provinces of mountains and rivers".
However, in terms of this year's funding, the effect is still not very obvious.
After combing the top 10 universities in Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, and Hebei, some media found that only Shandong University's budget in 2024 will be squeezed into the "10 billion club", reaching 13.971 billion yuan.
In addition, Ocean University of China and China University of Petroleum (East China) are two universities with a budget of more than 5 billion yuan, and all three universities are from Shandong Province.
The remaining top 10 universities in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei are all outside the top 50 on the list. Zhengzhou University, which ranks the highest in the three provinces, has a budget of 3.762 billion yuan in 2024.
However, the good news is that about nine universities in Henan have seen their budgets rise, of which Henan University has a budget of nearly 3.5 billion yuan this year, exceeding the budget of 1.1 billion yuan in the previous year. The budget of Shandong Qilu University of Technology exceeded 4 billion yuan, ranking seventh among all local university budgets.
In addition, the total budget of 34 provincial colleges and universities in Hebei increased by more than 3 billion yuan compared with last year, and the budget of Taiyuan University of Technology, Shanxi University, and North University of China in Shanxi exceeded 2 billion yuan, but none of them exceeded last year.
"Grabbing universities" is essentially "grabbing talents". While the shortcomings of higher education resources in the "four provinces" have attracted attention, the population loss of these four provinces last year was also very conspicuous.
According to the data, in 2023, the permanent population of the four provinces will decrease by 1.39 million. Among the four provinces with the largest reduction in the country, the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" accounted for three seats.
Henan reduced 570,000 people, the largest reduction in the country; Shandong decreased by 398,200, the second in the country, Hebei decreased by 270,000, the fourth in the country, and Shanxi decreased by 153,600, the ninth in the country.
There are complex reasons for the population reduction in the "four provinces" to be among the highest in the country. However, the shortcomings in higher education may be the first reason.
In this sense, the speed of the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" to make up for the shortcomings has to be accelerated.
04
Of course, in stark contrast to the overall pattern of the "four provinces of mountains and rivers", some places are achieving "lying down to win".
Not long ago, Hebei released to the outside world:
The construction of the first batch of four central enterprise headquarters of China Star Network, Sinochem, Huaneng and China Mine, as well as the Xiong'an campus of Beijing Jiaotong University, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing Forestry University and China University of Geosciences, is speeding up in an all-round way.
Judging from the second batch of relief information, the number of colleges and universities in Xiong'an New Area will increase in the future, which means that the status of Hebei's higher education depression will be significantly changed, and even become a "highland" ranking among the top in the country.
At this point, the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" may form a differentiation.
So, in addition to Hebei, can the other three provinces of the "four provinces of mountains and rivers" also get a piece of the pie?