The development history of higher education can be traced back to universities in the Middle Ages, and then it has experienced development, mainly because universities in Britain, Germany and the United States have been constantly transforming, forming three major functions of higher education: cultivating specialized talents; Scientific research; Serve 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.

The essence of higher education is that higher education is a professional education based on the completion of secondary education and a social activity to train senior professionals. (Note: The above is the definition of higher education in China)

1998, there are 1022 colleges and universities in China; The number of students enrolled in colleges and universities is 6.5438+0.0836 million and 3.4087 million respectively. There are 72,500 graduate students in China, including doctoral students1.500, master students' 57,300, more than 200 graduate students, and graduate students 1.989. There are 962 adult colleges and universities in China, with students 1.00 1.400, 825,700 graduates and 2,822,200 students. 1998, the total number of students in colleges and universities (including adult colleges and universities) in China was 62,365,438+10,000.