The history of the development of higher education can be traced back to universities in the Middle Ages, and then it developed, mainly through the continuous reform of universities in Britain, Germany and the United States, forming three major functions of higher education, namely, cultivating specialized talents, scientific research and serving the society.

Since the reform and opening up, China's higher education has made great progress and remarkable achievements have been made in reform. A multi-level, multi-form and multi-disciplinary socialist higher education system adapted to the needs of national economic construction and social development has initially taken shape, which has trained a large number of senior professionals for socialist modernization and played an important role in national economic construction, scientific and technological progress and social development.

China's higher education qualifications are divided into five categories: general higher education, higher education self-study examination, open education of RTVU, adult higher education and distance network education.