由清华大学李宏彬团队发表的文章里得到证实。该团队对2003年六百二十万高考考生的背景和入学结果进行了分析，发现影响入学结果的主要因素来自城乡差异。农村学生入读四年制大学的机会比城市学生少五倍，入读211高校的机会少七倍，入读清华北大的机会少二十一倍。即便考虑了区域和经济发展的差异，这种城乡差异对入学结果的影响仍然没有改变。这意味着农民工子女借助教育实现向上流动的前景非常不乐观。

Unequal Access to College in China: How Far Have Poor, Rural Students Been LeftBehind?*

Hongbin Li†, Prashant Loyalka‡, Scott Rozelle§, Binzhen Wu** and Jieyu Xie††

Abstract

In the 1990s, rural youth from poor counties in China had limited access tocollege. After mass college expansion started in 1998, however, it was unclearwhether rural youth from poor counties would gain greater access. The aim ofthis paper is to examine the gap in college and elite college access between ruralyouth from poor counties and other students after expansion. We estimate thegaps in access by using data on all students who took the college entranceexam in 2003. Our results show that gaps in access remained high even afterexpansion. Rural youth from poor counties were seven and 11 times less likelyto access any college and elite Project 211 colleges than urban youth, respectively.Much larger gaps existed for disadvantaged subgroups (female or ethnicminority) of rural youth from poor counties.We also find that the gaps in collegeaccess were mainly driven by rural–urban differences rather than differencesbetween poor and non-poor counties within rural or urban areas.

Keywords: China; inequality; college access; rural; poor; college expansion