Diversify university funding

According to the annual accounts for the 2014 fiscal year of 76 major domestic universities, the spending of Tsinghua, Zhejiang, Peking and Shanghai Jiao Tong universities exceeded 10 billion yuan ($1.56 billion) each. Tsinghua University's spending reached 17.56 billion yuan ($2.77 billion).

The universities' spending of more than 10 billion yuan on their running costs is a reflection that, in terms of fiscal input, they are approaching that of world-class ones. Sufficient fiscal input theoretically offers the basic guarantee that a university can conduct quality teaching and scientific research and raise its academic strength.

However, compared with the world's leading universities, domestic universities, even the powerful ones, still have considerable gaps in the structure of their fiscal input or in the efficiency of how they use the money. To be world-class universities, they still need to expand their funding sources and set up a mechanism that can ensure the proper use of every cent.