Based on the variance analysis, we can see that F is valued at 221.352 (well above 1) and that the sig. value is smaller than 0.01. This gives further weight to the linear relationship between RTVU higher education enrollment and GDP during this period, and allows for the establishment of a linear regression equation. The coefficients resulting from the regression equation are shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Coefficients of the Regression Equation

Based on the regression coefficients shown in Table 3, the linear regression equation of the two variables can be seen in Table 4.

Table 4: The Linear Regression Equation between GDP and RTVU Higher Education Enrollment

According to the above equation of linear regression, RTVU higher education enrollment can be predicted based on GDP. Although there is certain degree of deviation, the numbers are always distributed in a near-straight line.

The above analysis demonstrates the interaction between the Chinese economy and changes to the scale of RTVU higher education enrollment. The scale of RTVU higher education has expanded along with China’s economic growth. This justifies the RTVUs’ goal of cultivating specialized local professionals that can play a long-term role in serving local economic development.

IV. Investigation into the student composition of RTVU higher education

In view of the significance of open education to RTVU higher education, we intend to analyze a sample of students enrolled since the launch of open education in 1999 (up to 2010), in order to investigate the attributes and changes in the composition of students involved in this kind of education and provide policy suggestions to further improve open education. The basic data comes from the CCRTVU student information database. Only the data for students who engage in undergraduate and junior college programmes was collected from the three-level open education system. Since it was only initiated in 2006, enrollment on the “One College Student per Village” programme remains fairly small and will be analyzed in further research papers. 

RTVU open education enrollment for the past 12 years is shown in Table 5.

Table 5: Open Education Enrollment Distribution

Figure 2: The Distribution of Open Education Enrollment