Abstract The university fundraising system is an organic system constituted by a series of beliefs, rules, regulations, routines, procedures and norms of conducts which have gradually been developed and formed in fundraising practices in promoting academic and educational excellence. To some extent, the university fundraising system and its level of development exemplify the modern university as an ″axis″ of the society in actively integrating into the society, joining the market, and strengthening its selfdetermined awareness and enterprising attitude. The rationality for the university fundraising system in the context of mass higher education lies in the following three reasons. The first one is that realizing the functions of the modern university requires developing the university fundraising system. Because of the increasing openness of the modern university, the realization of its functions has to rely on the exchange of resources and information with the external environment. University fundraising includes a series of fundraising practices such as relationship cultivation, solicitation, donation, and endowment investment management. In these fundraising processes, the university establishes partnerships and friendships with donors from outside the university. This promotes the linkages, interactions and exchanges between the university and the outside world. The second reason is that the transformation of the nature of higher education has provided a basis for developing the university fundraising system. This system is in line with the internal logic of the transformation of higher education from public goods to quasipublic goods. It is inevitable that higher education calls for a costsharing and compensation system, and it is an implementation mechanism that alumni, corporations, and social organizations directly give back to the university through charitable donations. The third reason is that the evolution of the model of higher education management has provided a favorable environment for developing the university fundraising system. The government has transformed from its ″all capable″ role to a navigator. The universitys legal status has been established. The post of the university president is professionalized. The model of business management characterized by competition, efficiency and assessment is widely used. All of these have provided basic conditions for developing the fundraising system regarding fundraising subjects, objects, mechanisms, leadership and fundraising team. Chinas mass higher education started late, experienced rapid development, but is based on a low economic level. In 2001 and 2011, the significant increase in the total fiscal input still lagged far behind the scale expansion in higher education. Nonfiscal funds have continually increased in ratio, but were almost entirely due to the rapid growth of tuition and fees. The ratio of tuition and fees in China is even higher than that in developed countries. On the contrary, the ratio of social fundraising incomes has continually decreased and is almost negligible. The university fundraising system started late and developed slowly due to internal and external factors such as the cultural environment, social morality, policies and regulations, reputation of university and leadership philosophy. However, the root cause is the traditional concept and misconception that it is unnecessary for universities to raise funds because the government should pay for university expenses, that university fundraising is a kind of educational privatization. To develop the university fundraising system, it is urgently necessary that government departments and universities should emancipate minds, transform traditional ideas, take their responsibilities and make joint efforts.
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