Universities face rising survival crisis

Despite the huge army of high school seniors pursuing higher education, Chinese universities face a growing survival crisis after decades of explosive expansion as the number of students taking what is generally considered the single most important test any Chinese person can take, the gaokao, has fallen for five straight years since 2009, reports Xinhua.

The number of test-takers peaked at 10.5 million in 2008. This year, about 9.42 million Chinese high school graduates, slightly less than the population of Sweden, were to sit for the famously stressful college entrance examination earlier this month.

The number of examinees stopped declining in 2014, but the modest recovery has not brought relief to the looming survival crisis, according to a 2015 report on Chinese university admissions released online recently. Universities across China have been facing difficulties meeting recruitment quotas in recent years.
Full report on the Xinhua site