读书何以有用——高等教育扩张下高水平大学的教育收益及阶层分化

Why Educational Investment Pays Off——High-Level Universities'Educational Earnings and Class Distinctions in the Context of Higher Education Expansion

当前,我国高等教育步入从“以量谋大”向“以质图强”转型的新阶段。高水平大学作为我国高等教育的质量标杆和阶层跨越的关键途径,其教育收益及引起的阶层分化对理解扩张政策下教育分层与社会流动关系至关重要。通过考察我国高考录取规则,采用断点回归因果推断模型,估计我国高水平大学教育收益,研究结果发现,我国高水平大学教育通过人力资本效应、信号效应和同伴效应使得个人初职起薪显著增长68.81%,弱势阶层比优势阶层学生获益更为显著。在高等教育普及化发展新阶段,高等教育高质量发展是推动建设教育强国的重要路径,应扩大高水平大学招生规模,强化其规模经济效应;根据需求动态调整普通本科大学招生规模,强化其质量监管;加大优质高等教育机会向弱势阶层的倾斜支持,建立以需求为导向、以质量为核心、以贡献为标尺的高等学校分类评价与资源动态调整机制,持续推进高等教育内涵式发展。

At present,China's higher education has stepped into a new stage from the pursuit of"larger quantity"to that of"higher quality."High-level universities remain the benchmark for the quality of higher education and the key approach to social class transitions.Their educational benefits and the class differentiation arising therefrom are very important to the understanding of the relationship between educational stratification and social mobility under the policy for expanded university admissions.This study,based on the rules for college entrance examinations in China and the regression discontinuity-based causal inference model,estimates educational earnings from high-level universities in China.The research results show that high-level university education in China significantly increased the starting salary of individuals by 68.81%through the combined effects of human capital,signaling and peers,and that students from the disadvantaged class benefited more significantly than those from the advantaged class.In the new stage of popularized higher education,the high-quality development of higher education is an important way to promote the building of a powerful country in education.We need to expand high-level university admissions,and strengthen their economies of scale;dynamically adjust the admissions of ordinary undergraduate universities according to specific demands,and strengthen the supervision of their quality;and offer more high-quality higher education opportunities to disadvantaged groups,and establish a demand-oriented,quality-centered,and contribution-based mechanism for classification-based evaluation and dynamic resource adjustment in higher education institutions so as to continuously promote the connotative development of higher education.