The 2021 Education Bulletin is belated and will not be released until the start of the fall semester of 2022. It is the latest release since 1998.
China and the United States are the two countries with the largest number of higher education students in the world today. The comparison between the two countries is of certain significance. However, due to differences in data caliber, it is necessary to pay attention to the main reasons for the differences when comparing.
Under the trend of my country's higher education expansion, the number of U.S. enrollment has declined, and the epidemic has amplified the decline; The graduation rate of U.S. universities has increased, but it is still far lower than our country's graduation rate; the follow-up rate of teachers under the domestic expansion has been slow, resulting in an increase in the student-teacher ratio, while it has decreased in the United States; The gap between the two countries' gross enrollment rates has increased significantly.
1. The university enrollment trends in China and the United States are divergent in the past three years
The freshmen data in the United States are the number of students entering colleges and universities for the first time. The enrollment numbers in China’s higher education include undergraduate students and first-year graduate students. These students are not entering colleges and universities for the first time. The data in this article are only based on the corresponding official disclosures.
The above figure shows that the expansion trend of the number of higher education students in my country from 2019 to 2021 is obvious, and records are constantly being set: general undergraduate enrollment in 2021 is 4.446 million, an increase of 1.21%; vocational undergraduate enrollment is 41,400, an increase of 2,946 people over the previous year, an increase of 7.66%; Higher vocational (junior college) enrollment was 5.5258 million, a decrease of 3.16%, and adult undergraduate and junior college enrollment was 3.7853 million, an increase of 4.06% over the previous year. The most difficult graduation season will continue.
There will be 1,116,600 new enrollments in the United States in 20212html, an increase of about 0.4% from last year. However, compared with pre-pandemic levels in the fall of 2019, the number of new students in the fall is far from recovering from last year's decline.
2. The number of students enrolled in China is 2.58 times that of the United States. In the second year of the epidemic, the United States has reduced by nearly one million
The total number of students enrolled in higher education in my country includes graduate students, general undergraduates, vocational undergraduates and higher vocational (junior college), adult undergraduate colleges, online undergraduate colleges, Higher Education Self-Study Examination undergraduate colleges, and other forms of higher education students.
The figure below shows, From 2019 to 2021, the scale of domestic higher education has continued to grow, but the United States has shown a downward trend.
In 2021, the total number of students enrolled in higher education in my country is 44.3 million, an increase of 2.47 million over the previous year and 2.58 times that of the United States. The gross enrollment rate of higher education was 257.8%, an increase of 3.4 percentage points over the previous year.
The number of college registrations in the United States in the fall of 2021 is 17.3023 million, a decrease of 2.7% from 2020 and a decrease of 476,100 students. Since the beginning of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the total has dropped by 5.1% in two years, or a decrease of 937,500 students. Undergraduate enrollment alone is down 3.1% from last year.
3. The six-year graduation rate in the United States is only 62.2%
In 2021, 772,800 domestic graduate students will graduate, including 72,000 doctoral students and 700,700 master's students. There were 4.281 million ordinary undergraduate graduates, an increase of 75,900 over the previous year, an increase of 1.80%. The number of higher vocational (junior college) graduates was 3.9841 million, an increase of 217,200 over the previous year, an increase of 5.77%.
The six-year average graduation rate in the United States in 2021 reached 62.2%, reaching 1.4768 million people, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from 2020. Compared with my country’s four-year undergraduate graduation rate of about 97% during the same period, there is a difference of nearly 35 percentage points. The key factors that affect the graduation rate of American universities include: high school grades can increase the graduation rate, and part-time, full-time work, enrollment in community colleges, GAP, and taking leave can reduce the graduation rate.
4. The average student-teacher ratio of American college students is nearly 4 fewer
The student-teacher ratio of higher education schools refers to the ratio of enrolled students to full-time teachers.
In 2021, the student-teacher ratio of China's ordinary undergraduate schools is 17.90:1, and the student-teacher ratio of vocational schools at the undergraduate level is 19.38:1. Under the enrollment expansion, teachers have been slow to follow up, resulting in an increase in the student-teacher-student ratio .
The average full-time university teacher-student ratio in higher education institutions in the United States in the fall of 2020 was 13.6, which was nearly 4 fewer than in China.. There are also large differences in the student-faculty ratio of different American universities. For example, the average ratio of private four-year universities is 10.1:1; public universities are 14.8:1. Compared with the student-teacher ratio of 16.8 in 2009, it has declined.
5. The difference in gross enrollment rates between China and the United States is mainly caused by differences in systems.
The gross enrollment rate is the ratio of the number of students in school to the corresponding age-appropriate population.
Under the expansion of enrollment, my country’s higher education gross enrollment rate will be 57.8% in 2021, an increase of 3.4 percentage points from the previous year. In 2010, it was only 26.5%.
The overall college enrollment rate for 18 to 24-year-olds in the United States in 2020 was 40%, with Asians (64%) higher than whites (41%). From 40% in 2010 to 40% in 2020, there is almost no change.
The gap in gross enrollment rates between China and the United States is increasing. The United States shows a downward trend, while my country has an obvious morning trend.
The main reason for this difference is:
1) The proportion of American college students over 24 years old reaches 34%, that is, adults, while in our country they are mainly the appropriate age group.
2) The proportion of full-time students in American universities only accounts for 64% (2021), and the proportion of part-time students is much larger than that in Chinese universities.
3) American universities adopt the credit system and are allowed to take a break midway, so it takes a long time to complete their studies. The six-year average graduation rate in the United States in 2021 will reach 62.2%, while the on-time graduation rate of Chinese ordinary college students is about 97%.
6. The proportion of private universities in the United States is relatively high
In 2021, there were 8.4574 million students enrolled in private general and vocational undergraduate and junior college colleges in China, an increase of 544,000 over the previous year, accounting for 24.19% of the total number of students enrolled in general and vocational undergraduate and junior college colleges in the country. Changes in private education policies have not been followed up with data in a timely manner.
There are 3.0824 million private college students in the United States in the fall of 2021, accounting for 26% of the number of enrolled students in the United States, which is slightly higher than that in my country.
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