AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON FUNCTION REGIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION POPULATION DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

According to the development of higher education in China, this paper emphatically explores the relationship evolution of higher education population and economic growth from scale and geographical distribution, and the development of higher education in different areas is evaluated objectively from carrying capacity of population. For this study, the correlated data comes from China statistical yearbook and education statistical yearbook and population and employment yearbook in China, and the sixth national census major data. Through population gravity model and the comprehensive carrying capacity model of higher education population calculation, the empirical study proves that the higher education population scale can make corresponding adjustments to keep pace with economic growth, which has more and more high sensitivity. Higher education population gravity and economic gravity run mostly in the same direction in geographical spatial distribution, and they all have southward trend. Besides, based on the population carrying capacity evaluation results and function types, China (except for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) is divided into 4 higher education population function regions by discriminate analysis: optimizing area, key area, driving area and area reliant on support.