Can Higher Household Education Expenditure Improve the National College Entrance Exam Performance? Empirical Evidence from Jinan, China - Study Findings

Oct 15, 2026

Examines whether household education expenditure affects performance on China’s National College Entrance Exam (NCEE). Using a comprehensive dataset of 5,840 students from Jinan, the study finds no significant average effect on NCEE performance overall, while effects become significant and positive for students with higher test scores. Results indicate significantly positive impacts on Chinese scores at the 0.75th quantile and on English scores at the 0.5th quantile, highlighting heterogeneity across score levels.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages25

Reading Time1 h 3 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Study motivation and background

Household education expenditure in China

Motivation for empirical evaluation

Literature Review

Determinants of household education expenditure

Can Higher Household Education Expenditure Improve the National College Entrance Exam Performance? Empirical Evidence from Jinan, China Yu Zhang Institute of Education, Tsinghua University Xuehan Zhou Institute of Education, Tsinghua University The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of household education expenditure on National College Entrance Exam (NCEE) performance in China. Using a comprehensive dataset with a sample size of 5840 students collected in Jinan, China, this study found that the average effect of household education expenditure on NCEE performance is not significant, but it may have a significant and positive effect on those with higher test scores. There is a significantly positive effect on Chinese scores for students at the 0.75th quantile and on English scores for those at the 0.5th quantile. Introduction Among all types of educational inputs available for research, educational expenditure isone of the most important (Zhou & Zhang (authors, 2015)) . It plays an important role in the accumulation of human capital and the economic growth of one country (Kaganovich & Zilcha, 1999; Shi, 2006) . Evaluating the effects of educational expenditure on student achievement is, therefore, a crucial issue for both researchers and stakeholders in education systems. Although public expenditure has been extensively researched in the context of debates on school effectiveness and government accountability (Tsang 1994; Tsang and Ding 2005), very limited data for household education expenditure has been provided, primarily due to data constraints. A better understanding of household education expenditure is very important, for it would play an important role in family, school and policy decisions towards resource allocation in China. For one thing, it can help to improve educational quality. Household education expenditures are private resources that augment public resources to education. It can be used as interventions to enhance education quality. Furthermore, household education expenditure can also help to address the educational inequality issues. Disparities in household education expenditure among social groups may exacerbate educational inequalities among social groups. It may help policymakers to design policies to mitigate educational inequality if there is a good understanding of variation in household investment to education (Tsang & Kidchanapanish, 1992; Shi, 2006) . Household educational expenditure, or monetary spending, contributed by families for their children’s education, constitutes an important part of total education expenditures (Li & Tsang, 2003; Tsang, 2002) . According to national statistics in China, the scale of household educational expenditure was 8959.05 billion RMB (1298.41 billion US$) in 2013, accounting for 29.5% of total education spending (public education expenditure totaled 21405.67 billion RMB, or 3102.27 billion US$) (Figure 1) . Figure 1. The scale of household and public education expenditure. Household educational expenditure Public education expenditure Source: Yearbook of China Education Statistics (2013) Household educational expenditure constitutes a significant proportion of household spending. In urban families, household educational expenditure accounted for 35.1% of total household expenditure, and it accounted for 30.1% of total family income in 2013.1 In addition, household educational expenditure is strongly correlated with household income and wealth; high household income often predicts high household education 1 Statistic Report on National Education Expenditure in 2013, published by the Ministry of Education, National Statistics Bureau, and the Ministry of Public Finance. expenditure (West, 1995; Foko, Tiyab & Husson, 2012; Zhou & Zhang (authors, 2015)) . With the increasing attention on improving student achievement, a growing number of parents spend more on education with the hope that it will help their children get be

FAQs

What is the study’s primary purpose?

To examine how household education expenditure influences National College Entrance Exam (NCEE) performance in China.

What data does the study use?

A comprehensive dataset covering 5,840 students collected in Jinan, China.

Do household education expenditures improve NCEE performance on average?

The average effect on NCEE performance is not significant, but the effect can be significant and positive for students with higher test scores.

Oct 15, 2026

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