Does China have free education? Partly. Public schools charge no tuition for the nine years of compulsory education, which covers primary school and junior secondary school, and a new national policy began waiving fees for the final year of preschool in autumn 2025. Everything outside that window — earlier preschool years, senior high school, and university — still costs money, and even during the free years families pay for meals, uniforms, transportation, and supplies.
The Nine Compulsory Years Are Tuition-Free
China’s Compulsory Education Law sets up a nine-year system of mandatory, tuition-free public schooling. The usual structure is six years of primary followed by three years of junior secondary, though some regions use a five-plus-four split. The law bars public schools from charging tuition or miscellaneous fees during this period.{1Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China} Teacher salaries, school construction, and basic operations are funded through central and local government budgets.
“Tuition-free” is not the same as “cost-free.” Families still pay for meals, uniforms, transportation, and extracurricular activities, and those costs add up quickly in urban schools where expectations around supplies and supplementary materials run higher.
Help for Low-Income Families
The “Two Exemptions and One Subsidy” policy is designed to close that gap for poorer households. The two exemptions cover tuition and miscellaneous fees plus textbook costs; the subsidy provides living expense support for boarding students, which is common in rural areas where schools may be far from home.{2Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. New Progress in Development-oriented Poverty Reduction Program for Rural China} It was first piloted in impoverished rural areas and later extended to urban and rural students nationwide. Without it, the indirect costs of “free” schooling would effectively price many rural children out.
Preschool: Free for the Final Year Starting 2025
Beginning with the autumn 2025 semester, public kindergartens stopped charging care and education fees for children in their final year before primary school. Children in private kindergartens receive a fee reduction matching the amount exempted at local public kindergartens.{3Gov.cn. China Announces Phased Implementation of Free Preschool Education} The government has described this as the first step of a broader plan but has not published a firm date for extending free preschool to all three kindergarten years.
Before this change, preschool was one of the heaviest financial burdens on young families. Public kindergartens in Beijing typically charged less than 10,000 yuan (roughly $1,450) per year, but competition for spots was fierce. Private kindergartens ranged from a few hundred to several thousand U.S. dollars per month.{4Xinhua. China Begins Gradual Rollout of Free Preschool Education, Lifting Burden on Young Families} Some counties in western China had already offered free preschool for over a decade under local 15-year free education pilots, but the 2025 rollout is the first national mandate.
High School Is Not Free
Senior secondary school sits outside compulsory education. Public high schools charge tuition, typically 2,000 to 5,000 yuan per year (roughly $290 to $725) depending on the region, with additional costs for textbooks, uniforms, and meals. International schools and elite private high schools charge many times that, with annual tuition that can reach tens of thousands of U.S. dollars.
Admission to academic high school is not automatic. Students must pass the zhongkao, the senior high school entrance exam, and not everyone makes the cut. In several provinces, roughly half of junior secondary graduates are directed toward vocational schools instead. Tuition at public vocational secondary schools has been reduced or eliminated for many students as part of a broader government push to promote the vocational track.
University Costs for Domestic Students
Chinese universities charge tuition, but the cost for domestic students at public institutions is far lower than most English-language sources suggest. Domestic undergraduate tuition generally falls between 4,000 and 8,000 yuan per year (roughly $580 to $1,160), though recent hikes at some schools have pushed certain programs above that range. Art, medicine, and engineering programs sit at the higher end.
On top of tuition, students pay for housing, food, and personal expenses. University dormitories for domestic students are heavily subsidized, often just 800 to 1,200 yuan per year. Monthly living expenses run much higher in Beijing or Shanghai than in smaller cities.
Grants and Loans
China has expanded financial aid substantially in recent years. The main programs for domestic students are:
- The National Scholarship, awarded to top-performing undergraduates at 10,000 yuan per year (roughly $1,450). The number of recipients was doubled in 2024 to 120,000 students nationwide.
- The National Student Grant, a need-based grant for economically disadvantaged undergraduates, averaging 3,700 yuan per year (roughly $537) after a 2024 increase.{}5The State Council of the People’s Republic of China. China Refines Financial Aid for Students
- Student loans up to 20,000 yuan per year for undergraduates and 25,000 yuan for graduate students, with interest rates reduced under the 2024 reforms.{}5The State Council of the People’s Republic of China. China Refines Financial Aid for Students
Because domestic tuition at most public universities runs well under 10,000 yuan per year, the 20,000 yuan loan ceiling is set to cover both tuition and a meaningful share of living expenses.
The Costs That Don’t Show Up on School Bills
The gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam, drives family spending that never appears on any official fee schedule. Roughly 13.4 million students sat for the exam in 2024, and only about 2% were admitted to top-tier universities. Admission rates vary sharply by province — students in Beijing and Shanghai have far better odds than those in agricultural provinces like Henan, where less than half of test-takers secure an undergraduate spot.
Families respond by investing heavily in tutoring, exam prep, and enrichment programs long before university. In 2021, the government’s “double reduction” policy banned for-profit tutoring in core academic subjects for compulsory-age students. The most visible parts of the tutoring industry contracted, but demand shifted to less regulated channels. For many middle-class families, these competitive costs dwarf the official tuition at every stage.
Who Actually Gets to Use the Free Schools
Even where education is officially free, access is not equal. China’s household registration system, known as hukou, ties public services including schooling to a person’s registered place of residence. When families migrate from rural areas to cities for work, their children often cannot enroll in city public schools on the same terms as local residents. Local governments may require years of social insurance contributions, formal employment documentation, or other criteria that effectively exclude many migrant families.
More than 13 million children are classified as migrant children living outside their registered hukou location. Many end up in under-resourced private schools serving migrant communities, or they return to their home province while their parents keep working elsewhere. The problem sharpens at the high school stage, because students must sit for the gaokao in their registered province, and university admissions run on provincial quotas. Free education on paper does not mean equal education in practice for this population.
International Students Pay a Different Price
None of the domestic pricing above applies to international students. At a mid-tier public university, annual tuition for international bachelor’s students runs roughly 20,000 to 30,000 yuan ($2,900 to $4,350), and elite programs climb far higher. Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, for example, charges international MBA students between 188,000 and 828,000 yuan for a full program.{6Peking University. Tuition Fees of Graduate Programs for International Students 2025} International dormitories typically cost 1,000 to 3,000 yuan per month, well above the domestic rate.
The Chinese Government Scholarship covers tuition for some degree-seeking international students at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels, but each grant cycle covers a single academic year; students in longer programs need to secure continued funding through their host university.{7Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America. Chinese Government Scholarship Application}
So the short version: nine years of compulsory schooling and the final preschool year are genuinely tuition-free at public schools for domestic students, with grants and subsidized loans available at the university level. Everything else — earlier preschool years, senior high school, university tuition, and the enormous shadow economy of exam preparation — is paid by families, and for millions of migrant children, even the free schools are hard to reach.