A total of 5.0175 trillion yuan (789billion $)was spent on education in 2021, an increase of 8.74 percent over last year.
Of this total, the financial expenditure on education was 4.0049 trillion yuan(630billion $), an increase of 8.25% over the previous year. In 2021, the total investment in preschool education, compulsory education, senior high school education and higher education was 409.9 billion yuan, 2.278 trillion yuan, 773 billion yuan and 1.3464 trillion yuan respectively, an increase of 11.63%,9.12%,7.53% and 11.99 %respectively over the previous year.
China implements nine-year compulsory education, with students in primary school for six years and junior high school for three years, with a total of nine years of education free of charge.
In public kindergartens from three to six years old, parents pay a small portion of the cost of care and meals, and the government provides places and teachers' salaries.
Fees are charged for high schools and universities, but school construction and teachers' salaries are still paid by the government. This is also the tuition fee of one of China's top universities is only 5,000 yuan a year, which has not changed for more than a decade.
In terms of quota, nine-year compulsory education spends the most. Homogeneous higher education, such as Tsinghua University, has a budget of 31.7 billion yuan, US $5 billion in 2021, with 53000 students, the annual tuition fee is 5000 yuan, and the total annual tuition fee is only 260 million yuan.The budget of this university is higher than defence budget of most countries.