Terrible universities
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The operation of the company
Universities are willing to open branch schools all in one place to form a sort of "university town," which occupy more than 10,000 square meters. Huge sums of money will be invested to create these towns.
There is a noticeable flow of conglomeration and separation of universities.
Several colleges combine into a university, and several professional universities combine into a comprehensive university. Because of this, institutes of technology have colleges of humanity, universities of science and technology have colleges of film, and almost all universities have medical colleges.
It is purported that that the purpose of the combination is to build a world-class university.
After merging, universities will soon find that stripping assets and splitting equity are a better, so that they start making property assessments, reorganizing resources and adjusting academics.
The income and payout of the company
It's not very surprising that universities have huge debts. And it's not news when universities like Yanshan University, Zhejiang University City College and Jilin University have debts of millions to billions of yuan. An unnamed source said in total, Chinese universities owe approximately 400 to 500 billion yuan.
It's the worst nightmare of any professional manager.
However, universities have outstanding strategies to fix the problem: They sell campus land to pay debts caused by expanding enrollment. Then the cheap land used for education is sold at a price well above what the university paid for it. Universities can therefore repay the debts, and they might even make money sometimes.
Some university presidents have said, "Universities don't print currency or sell goods; their main product is talent. Talent is sent to society for free." The whole society should therefore be liable for such debts, according to those presidents.
Universities of course don't print currency; however, funding from tuition constantly pours in. Because of some education system reforms, tuition and enrollment are continuously increasing.
The system works for the universities: they get revenue from both the government and university fees, and their end products – educated students – are both public servants and commodities. University presidents call for more government funds and complain about low tuition fees, then they blame society for low employment rate. The schools consider themselves public service agents when they are in debt, and industrial corporations when they're making money.
The best part about the system for the universities is that they don't bear much responsibility. Taxpayers fund the schools through taxation, and then again through tuition for their children. Graduates have to find jobs on their own, and be responsible for university debts just like everyone else.
The company culture of universities
China's university news always makes great entertainment news; school scandals are often the top stories on news websites.
There are frequently stories about academic plagiarism committed by doctoral advisors or university presidents, or about inappropriate sexual relations in all different kinds of schools.
When university generates news all the way along its production line, how can we say it's not a classic case of company culture?
A student, from orientation to graduation, from raw material to a finished product, from a product to an employee, merely travels along the production line of the university. He or she makes an investment by paying tuition, and tries to win a future.
(This article was originally published in the latest issue of Chinese magazine Newsweekly and translated by Wang Mengru and Zhou Jing.)
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