The founding of universities in modern Japan and China: Sponsorship patterns and their consequences

The essay problematizes the sponsorship patterns of universities in societies that are in the initial stages of establishing a modern system of higher education. In contemporary developed countries of the West, the sponsorship patterns of universities are being problematized as the encroachment of neoliberal imperatives on higher education (eg. Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). The founding and expansion of modern universities have been successfully carried out long time ago in the West, however. Other societies that are just beginning to establish modern universities are facing a different set of circumstances as well as problems. Who sponsor the initial founding and expansion of universities in non-Western contexts? Why were these sponsors willing to invest resources in these not-profit institutions? Do the sponsor-university relations entail any negative implications for the operation of the academy? This essay investigates the sponsorship patterns behind the founding of universities in modern Japan (late-19th century) and modern China (early 20th century) to explore these questions.