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China Seeking U.S. InvestmentIn Private School Sector

By Rhea R. Borja

In a massive effort to expand and improve education for its more than 240 million students, China is encouraging American and other foreign for-profit companies and universities to establish and invest in private schools and colleges there.

World Learning Page Since 1993, when then- President Deng Xiaoping began loosening the Communist government's grip on business and education, tens of thousands of private precollegiate schools and college-degree programs have set up shop in the 1.3 billion-person country. They are run by Chinese entrepreneurs on their own as well as jointly with American and other foreign universities and for-profit companies. More than 40 percent of China's education funding now comes from private sources.

Despite the proliferation of private education, the road toward setting up foreign-Chinese schools is often rife with hurdles, from vague and often-confusing regulations to the indirect negotiating style of the Chinese, experts say. A law that took effect Sept. 1 may make that process...