Universities' budget rankings not an indicator of how good they are

FOLLOWING THE REQUIREMENT of the Education Ministry, 75 universities directly under its administration have disclosed their budgets for this year. Beijing-based Tsinghua University tops the list with an annual budget of 26.95 billion yuan ($4.23 billion), 10 billion yuan more than Zhejiang University (15.47 billion yuan), which ranks second on the list. China Education Daily comments:

Some media outlets have commented that the universities' budgets directly reflect their education quality and research level. In fact, that is not necessarily the case. For instance, Peking University's budget ranks sixth on the list. But it remains the most difficult university to enter for high school graduates. It makes more sense to judge a university by its minimum enrollment marks in the national college entrance exam than how much it spends each year.

It is noteworthy that government funds account for an increasingly smaller share in the universities incomes, as an increasingly larger share comes from their earnings for their training and research activities.