Higher education is an important element of social and economic growth, and it a driver of social and economic growth. Accordingly, it is not possible to neglect higher education’s growth. Higher education in China was a rather late start, and experienced a number of societal changes. During the initial stage of the nation building, China’s higher education was rather underdeveloped since china was a socialist country with a planned economy. Growth of higher education in China continued to fluctuate amidst very complex societal background. After reforming and opening, China became a socialist nation with free economy. At the same time, a series of changes took place in the higher education’s system, perception towards growth and method. China that continues to grow today became a nation with largest higher education segment in the world. An objective and holistic review of the Chinese higher education’s growth and its characteristics has been conducted utilizing the cultural or system level perspective which makes unification difficult amidst the societal background of globalization. Thus, it would be critical to include Chinese higher education into the international background, to carry out the study that combines it with China’s state of affairs. Thus, studies on higher education in China need to consider three aspects; history of higher education in contemporary China, higher education reform measures and current status concerning higher education. Three major aspects characterize higher education in China. First, the ‘government leads it’ which means that the government provides most of the resources needed for higher education in China to growth. Meanwhile, detailed action plans and methods for the growth of higher education need to be carried out according to the government's plan. Second, the government's goal is to ‘build world class universities.’ As such, the key institutions of higher education such as 211 University and 985 University benefit from diverse measures of all different domains. Third, the ‘rapid expansion of higher education is the ultimate goal of the govemment. The 1999 expansion policy enabled higher education in China to enter the stage of popularization in a very short period. As such, China already became a nation with considerably large higher education . Overall, higher education reform in China is comparatively slower compared to the economic system reform. One of the most disputable and thus most difficult issues to resolve is the higher education institutions’ autonomy. This issue, however, is expected to improve significantly given the direction of growth of the higher education in China.