According to the guidance catalogue, higher education is an industry that encourages foreign investment, and the investment methods are limited to joint ventures and cooperation. However, as for the specific ways for foreign investors to invest in the education industry, the existing laws only refer to the Regulations on Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools and the Implementation Measures for the Regulations on Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools. Foreign investors can cooperate with China to set up cooperative education institutions or implement Sino-foreign cooperative education projects ("cooperative education"), but at the same time, they have set higher conditions and strict restrictions on cooperative education, including: foreign investors should be foreign educational institutions (according to the results of our telephone consultation with relevant education departments, educational institutions only refer to schools), and applicants for the establishment of Chinese-foreign cooperative education institutions should have corresponding qualifications and high quality of running schools. The application for the establishment of a Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run school with higher education or above shall be examined and approved by the Ministry of Education, and the application for the establishment of a Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run school with higher vocational education and higher education without academic qualifications shall be examined and approved by the people's government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government where the proposed institution is located.

Because it is difficult to meet the conditions under the mode of cooperative education, and the law does not explicitly prohibit foreign investors from investing in the education industry in other ways, in practice, foreign investors generally choose to invest in the education industry through other alternative ways, such as (1) foreign-invested enterprises established in China or companies reinvested in China, such as Huachuang Education. Registered in Hong Kong) set up the Foreign Business School of Chongqing Normal University, Lijiang College of Guangxi Normal University and Business School of Hubei University of Technology through its domestic reinvested enterprises, or (2) invest in the education industry through VIE mode (see Part II of this Memorandum for specific analysis). However, according to the results of our telephone consultation with the Development Planning Department and the International Cooperation and Exchange Department of the Ministry of Education of China, at present, foreign investors who intend to invest in private education in China can only apply for the establishment of Chinese-foreign cooperative education institutions or Chinese-foreign cooperative education projects in accordance with the standards and conditions stipulated in the Regulations on Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools and the Measures for the Implementation of the Regulations on Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools.

The following links are for your reference:

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& lt Memorandum on the relevant legal provisions and legal structure of investing in private higher education & gt；;