How do universities operate?
As the article explains, the reality remains rooted in the law of the jungle—prioritizing closeness and rank, where the weak are exploited to enrich the strong. Better-funded schools receive more government allocations, while weaker ones get less, often depending on how close they are to the funding agencies. Beyond this, the core revenue for most institutions comes from tuition and fees—the primary income for ordinary colleges and the fundamental driver behind tuition hikes, since government funding is often insufficient and there are few other income sources.
However, prestigious universities often have additional revenue streams, such as institutional enterprises leveraging campus capabilities (though I haven't closely tracked this), alongside university-affiliated companies. For example, Tsinghua's investment portfolio has reached nearly 5 billion RMB...
The final major revenue source is alumni donations. Tsinghua leads this area with cumulative donations approaching 17 billion RMB.
From another perspective, evaluating a university based on its revenue capacity is a quite useful approach when choosing a college.