In 2025, Ms. Wang, a resident of Huangshi, Hubei, relocated her second-grade child from their rural hometown to a school in Yichang city where she and her husband work. To facilitate this "educational migration," the couple had scrimped and saved for years to purchase a property, driven solely by the desire to secure superior educational resources for their child. Ms. Wang's choice epitomizes the fervent hope of millions of families for their children to "attend a good school."
Education is a matter of deep concern for every household and a fundamental national and party priority. Key policy documents, including the "Education Power Construction Plan Outline (2024–2035)" and recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan, have consistently signaled this focus. The 2025 Central Economic Work Conference explicitly called for advancing the structural adjustment of educational resource allocation and increasing the supply of regular high school placements and enrollment slots at elite undergraduate institutions.
"The policy to expand regular high schools and elite undergraduate programs is a crucial move that deeply understands population dynamics and implements the 'investing in people' strategy," said Zhao Wen, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Centered on "investing in people," these educational reforms aim to transform the "demographic dividend" into a "talent dividend," unfolding systematically through top-level design, coordinated advancement, and interlinked steps.
Addressing the peak in school-age population is essential to meet the demand for quality education. "The supply of placements in quality high schools is a long-standing issue; the current capacity falls far short of meeting the public's demand for good education, making the expansion of high-quality high school slots both necessary and urgent," stated Liu Xi'a, Party Committee Secretary of Chongqing Xiejiawan School, when discussing educational resource provision.
From the perspective of this veteran frontline educator, China's basic education still grapples with a relatively low teacher-student ratio and large class sizes, while the caliber of high-quality teacher development lags behind that of developed nations. "Transitioning from a 'flood-irrigation' approach to education to personalized instruction requires a continuous supply of high-quality educational resources," she added.
In the short term, the school-age population in basic education is undergoing wave-like fluctuations. Future demographic shifts will continue to cause fluctuations in educational demand and resource allocation. Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng provided a clear timeline in a 2025 media interview: China's population dynamics have new characteristics, with the primary school student population peaking in 2023, the junior high school population expected to peak in 2026, the high school population peaking in 2029, and the higher education age population peaking in 2032.
"Population is a significant variable influencing the supply of school educational resources. The number of placements provided largely depends on the total size of the age-appropriate population, but it is not the sole factor," noted Li Jianmin, Associate Researcher at the Regional Education Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences. Compared to the near-universal access achieved in compulsory education, upper secondary education is still in a phase of increasing普及 rates.
The 2024 National Education Development Statistics Bulletin showed that the gross enrollment rate for upper secondary education reached 92% in 2024. "When superimposed with the increasing school-age population, the demand for high school placements, particularly for quality regular high school slots, remains substantial in the near term," Li Jianmin said.
To fulfill the public's expectation of "attending a good school," a series of expansion initiatives are being implemented. At a 2025 press conference on "Achievements in China's High-Quality Economic Development," then-Deputy Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform Commission Yuan Da stated that in 2024, to adapt to changes in population size and structure, efforts were intensified to strengthen regular high school construction and promote the qualitative expansion of higher education, resulting in 600,000 new regular high school placements and 400,000 new university dormitory beds added throughout the year.
At a press conference held by the State Council Information Office in June 2025, Guo Peng, Director of the Department of Development Planning at the Ministry of Education, revealed that in the basic education sector, the Ministry would further improve the mechanism for coordinating and allocating educational resources in line with demographic changes. A key focus is addressing the acute shortage of high school placements by building or renovating over 1,000 quality regular high schools.
"As the expansion policies are continuously implemented, they will propel education from basic equilibrium towards quality equilibrium, enabling more children to benefit from superior educational resources and providing more opportunities for top innovative talents to shine," Liu Xi'a commented.
The expansion of elite undergraduate programs embodies the "investing in people" philosophy. In 2025, at a press conference on economic topics during the Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress, Zheng Shanjie, Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, disclosed plans to advance the expansion of elite undergraduate programs, further increasing undergraduate enrollment at "Double First-Class" universities, with an expansion of 16,000 students in 2024 and a target of an additional 20,000 in 2025.
News of the elite undergraduate expansion quickly trended on multiple hot lists, becoming a topic of public discussion. This information was welcome news for Ms. Zhan, who has a child in their first year of high school. "If there are more slots available at good universities, my child might have a slightly easier path," she said.
Currently, China has 147 "Double First-Class" universities. A recent research report on the allocation and use of fiscal funds for higher education, issued by relevant committees of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, indicated that of the over 40 million postgraduate, undergraduate, and vocational students nationwide, only about 10% are enrolled in "Double First-Class" universities, highlighting a significant gap between the supply of quality resources and public demand.
"On one hand, the supply of quality higher education resources remains relatively insufficient to meet public expectations; on the other hand, serving national strategic needs requires cultivating more high-quality, knowledge-based talents," said Ren Zengyuan, Deputy Director of the Higher Education Research Institute at Jilin University.
In 2025, several universities took the lead in acting. "However, judging by the scale and direction of undergraduate expansion at major universities, it's not merely about increasing numbers. The expansion is directed towards emerging fields in engineering, liberal arts, and sciences, and towards talent cultivation for critical strategic areas," mentioned Ding Yan, Associate Researcher at the Higher Education Research Institute of Fudan University, noting that disciplinary boundaries are increasingly being blurred at many universities, underscoring the demand for cultivating interdisciplinary talent. "The expansion of elite undergraduate programs will bring about changes in the direction of educational quality, not just quantitative changes."
Looking ahead, Ding Yan believes that the development of university faculty and the disciplinary system will also evolve, requiring teachers to continuously enhance their teaching methods and research capabilities to help students adapt to the demands of the AI era. "There is a deeper connotation behind the expansion of elite undergraduate programs," pondered Ren Zengyuan. "It is not only an important measure to meet the public's demand for 'attending a good school' but also a implementation of the 'investing in people' philosophy, continuously serving national strategic needs."
Ren Zengyuan emphasized that people are the most dynamic factor among all productive forces. Expanding elite undergraduate education means, through "investing in people," cultivating more high-quality, knowledge-based talents to strengthen the talent foundation supporting Chinese modernization.
Monitoring changes in the school-age population and strengthening early assessment are critical. The recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly require: "Improving the mechanism for allocating educational resources adapted to demographic changes." Zhao Wen analyzed that as China approaches its peak total population and faces deepening aging, the growth model reliant on increasing labor force size is becoming unsustainable. Against this backdrop, increasing investment in secondary and higher education to transform population pressure into a human resource advantage is the essential path for transitioning from a "population giant" to a "talent powerhouse."
Specifically, "increasing the supply of regular high school placements and enrollment in elite undergraduate programs" provides a large-scale, structurally optimized talent pool for the innovation-driven development strategy. Simultaneously, by enhancing the value of human capital, it boosts household income, thereby providing sustained momentum for unleashing consumption potential and consolidating the foundation of domestic demand. Zhao Wen also noted that this policy is pushing for deeper reforms in the science and education systems, collectively building an innovation ecosystem.
One strategic move invigorates the entire board. The initiative to "increase the supply of regular high school placements and enrollment in elite undergraduate programs" not only addresses pressing public concerns but is also becoming a key focal point for optimizing talent cultivation models and activating the "talent dividend." The next challenge to solve is: how to leverage this to innovate talent cultivation models, promote the systemic reshaping of educational resource allocation, and achieve the strategic goal of integrating education, science, and human resources?
Based on years of research, Li Liguo, a professor at Tsinghua University's Institute of Education, proposed that by 2035, the expansion of "Double First-Class" universities should achieve the "Two 20%" and "Scale Doubling" targets. This means students at "Double First-Class" universities should account for 20% of all regular higher education students nationwide, and their enrollment should constitute 20% of total national undergraduate enrollment. Additionally, "Scale Doubling" refers to doubling the student population at "Double First-Class" universities compared to the 2023 scale.
In Li Liguo's view, the expansion of "Double First-Class" universities is not merely an issue of scaling up operations but a process of optimizing the layout of higher education and enhancing the overall quality of the higher education system. Looking forward to the implementation of the elite undergraduate expansion policy, he recommended continuously optimizing the structure of talent cultivation levels, establishing a mechanism for categorized expansion of postgraduate education, tapping the potential of existing "Double First-Class" universities, steadily expanding the scope of the initiative, supporting the establishment of new research-oriented universities, and actively introducing international quality higher education resources.
Drawing from years of research in basic education, Li Jianmin's reflection is twofold. On one hand, it's crucial to recognize the overall development trend after the peak school-age population is reached at different educational stages, the requirements for high-quality development, and the transformation of educational forms aided by new technologies, necessitating forward-looking predictions of high school placement demand and its geographical shifts. On the other hand, it's essential to fully utilize the wave-like progression of population changes from primary to junior high to high school, accelerate the improvement of cross-stage resource allocation mechanisms, and, combined with reforms in basic education management systems, explore inter-administrative cooperation to facilitate the orderly and effective flow of quality resource elements.
In the future, exploring the temporary use of idle public service resources to address high school placement supply could help manage the peak smoothly; after the peak, these resources could be repurposed based on various public service needs. In Li Jianmin's view, "This educational reform focusing on 'increasing the supply of regular high school placements and enrollment in elite undergraduate programs' is using the 'small incision' of simultaneous quantitative and qualitative improvement to leverage an overall transformation of the education system."
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