Abstract:

The key point of achieving the goal of common prosperity lies in increasing residents’ income and narrowing the income gap, and how higher education expansion through the transmission of human capital can make sense in this process deserves more exploration. Based on panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2003-2019, by using panel regression models, beta convergence analysis and panel threshold regression model tests, this article found higher education expansion, structural changes and quality improvement all had significant impacts on the realization of common prosperity. Moreover, the expansion of undergraduate and postgraduate education, the improvement of the postgraduate proportion and the increase in per capita funding which is one of the main characteristics of higher education quality all significantly contribute to the increase of the per capita disposable income. Meanwhile, there is a nonlinear relationship between the growth of the graduate student scale and the change of structure and the residents’ disposable income. The impact of higher education expansion on income growth increases with the size and proportion of postgraduates, and the expansion of higher education increases per capita disposable income by raising human capital. Higher education expansion also drives the convergence of inter-provincial disparities in human capital, creating an economic catch-up effect in disadvantaged areas. The expansion also drives the convergence of inter-provincial disparities in human capital, creating an economic catch-up effect in disadvantaged areas, thereby reducing the absolute inter-provincial disparity in residential income, as well as the threshold effects of human capital size and human capital concentration. The policy implications of this study are to implement the strategic goal of common prosperity based on the new historical orientation of higher education expansion on science and technology innovation and talent supply, to initiate planning for the gross enrolment rate of higher education to 80% by 2035. Moreover, through optimizing the layout of higher education, cultivating regional innovation human capital, this study tries to find a way to narrow the regional residents’ income gap and improve the institutional mechanism of diversified investment in higher education funding, actively face the human capital agglomeration phenomenon and stimulate the role of clustering and leading of national major strategic regions to promote the realization of common prosperity.

Key words: higher education expansion, human capital, increase residents’ income, narrow the income gap, common prosperity