China has been making various efforts to enrich and improve her higher education since the end of the Cultural Revolution. Particularly in the latter half of the 1980s individual institutions of higher education and local governments have acquired more competence in deciding how to enlarge and enrich higher education. This task is a difficult one when we consider that the situation and conditions of each institution and locality considerably varies from one to another. This paper intends to statistically analyze the changes of educational conditions at individual institutions of higher education. For example, what are the characteristics of institutions which have undergone remarkable changes? What are the causes and factors that facilitate the improvement of educational conditions?

The research method used in this study is as follows. First, two indices concerning the educational conditions were set up, i.e., one index to indicate the degree of enrichment at a point in time (enrichment index) and the other index to indicate the degree of improvement during a period of time (improvement index). The former is a compound variable composed of the following 4 variables for 1980 and 1988 respectively, namely, (1) building area per student, (2) number of books per student, (3) number of teachers per student, (4) ratio of professors and associate professors to other faculty members. The latter is also a compound variable composed of the differences between the figures in 1980 and 1988 concerning the above-mentioned 4 variables. Then the relationship between these indices and the following 6 attributes of individual institutions. The basic attributes used here are (1) province where the concerned institution is located, (2) regional characteristics of the location, (3) the competent authorities controling each institution, (4) types of institution by specialized field, (5) types of institution by name (university, college or specialized school), (6) time of establishment.

Results of this study are summarized as follows.

First, as for the enrichment index, there are no remarkable differences between 1980 and 1988 in general (correlation coefficient is 0.66 for the two years).

Secondly, higher ranked institutions showed a lower degree of improvement than institutions in lower ranks concerning on the enrichment index. In other words, the balance has improved for educational conditions among the various institutions.

Thirdly, differences in educational conditions between so-called key universities and non-key universities have been decreasing. Most of the key universities are highly ranked concerning the enrichment index but many of them ranked lower for the improvement index.

Forthly, the location of the institution concerned affects the degree of enrichment and improvement. This is because leading institutions are unevenly distributed in some provinces and manpower needs differ from province to province.