In the global surge of competition in higher education, a seemingly subtle yet profound phenomenon is quietly emerging, deeply affecting the core nature of universities: the presidents of China’s top 39 national universities are almost exclusively from a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) background, whereas two-thirds of the presidents among the US News Top 50 universities graduated from humanities and social sciences fields.
This structural disparity is not a mere statistical coincidence but a mirrored reflection of the two countries’ differing logics in higher education development, societal demands, and power mechanisms. It determines not only how universities allocate resources and shape the academic atmosphere, but, more fundamentally, whether the university can truly fulfill its “nurturing” mission—to cultivate complete individuals equipped with critical thinking, humanistic concern, and a global perspective. The persistence of this phenomenon highlights China’s relative neglect of cultivating the “soft soul” while pursuing “hard power” in higher education, an oversight whose long-term social consequences are deeply significant.
📊 Data Comparison and Phenomenon Analysis
As of December 2025, the background distribution of incumbent presidents of China’s 985 universities shows a highly homogeneous characteristic. According to statistics from the official websites of the Ministry of Education and the universities, 36 out of 39 presidents have a STEM background (with both undergraduate and doctoral degrees almost always in the same discipline), accounting for 92%. Within this group, Engineering accounts for 56%, Sciences for 28%, and Medicine for 8%. Only three individuals come from the humanities and social sciences: Ma Huaide of Renmin University of China (Law), Chen Yulu of Nankai University (Economics), and Qiang Shugong of Minzu University of China (Law).
The average age of these presidents is 58, over 60% are members of the Chinese Academies of Sciences/Engineering, and most ascended through internal promotion pathways. Examples include: President Li Luming of Tsinghua University (Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Academician); President Gong Qihuang of Peking University (Ph.D. in Physics, Academician); President Jin Li of Fudan University (Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Academician). This STEM-dominated pattern is not recent; as far back as 2008, Engineering accounted for 64% and Science 28% among 985 presidents. The subsequent “Double First-Class” initiative further solidified this trend, with STEM presidents accounting for over 84% in “Double First-Class” universities. In the 2025 adjustments of university leadership, 8 of the 985 universities welcomed new presidents, 7 of whom have Academician status and all have STEM backgrounds, further confirming the dominance of STEM in China’s higher education leadership.
In stark contrast is the leadership of elite US universities. Based on the US News 2025-2026 National University Rankings and official university data, 66% of presidents have their highest degree in the humanities and social sciences (across fields such as Law, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Communications, Literature, History, Philosophy, and Theology), while STEM backgrounds account for 34%. Furthermore, 15% of presidents possess interdisciplinary backgrounds combining humanities/social sciences and STEM (considering both undergraduate and terminal degrees).
Among the eight Ivy League schools, except for Larry Jameson of the University of Pennsylvania (undergraduate in Chemistry, Ph.D. in Biochemistry), the remaining seven presidents all hold humanities-dominant degrees or interdisciplinary ones: Christopher Eisgruber of Princeton (undergraduate in Physics, J.D. in Law); Alan Garber of Harvard (undergraduate in Economics, Ph.D. in Economics/M.D. in Medicine); Maurie McInnis of Yale (undergraduate and Ph.D. in Art History); Claire Shipmen of Columbia (undergraduate in Russian Studies, M.A. in International Relations); Christina H. Paxson of Brown University (undergraduate and Ph.D. in Economics); Michael Kotlikoff of Cornell (undergraduate in Literature, Ph.D. in Physiology); and Sian Leah Beilock of Dartmouth (undergraduate in Cognitive Science, Ph.D. in Psychology). This prevalence of humanities/social science backgrounds among presidents is not limited to the top-ranked US universities but is representative of US higher education as a whole.
This data comparison reveals a “two-pole mirror image” in Sino-US higher education leadership: the Chinese presidential cohort resembles a “STEM legion,” highly specialized and internally circulated; the US cohort is more like a “Diverse Board of Directors,” emphasizing balanced backgrounds and external recruitment. The extreme nature of this quantifiable difference is rare globally—no other major country’s higher education leadership is so comprehensively dominated by STEM as China’s, and few emphasize the liberal arts/STEM balance, or even humanities/social science dominance, as the US does. This reflects not only the functional positioning of the two countries’ universities (China prioritizing engineering for national strength; the US prioritizing holistic innovation and humanistic concern) but also hints at a potential systemic risk: when the background of leaders is highly homogeneous, will the university’s vision become similarly narrow? In an era of globalization, the persistence of this phenomenon may see Chinese universities lead in “hard metrics” but lag in “soft power.”
📜 Historical Roots and Selection Mechanism
The STEM dominance among the presidents of China’s 985 universities is rooted in the historical trajectory of higher education development in New China. The 1952 national restructuring of departments was a turning point: to serve industrialization, the state compressed humanities and social science majors into a few institutions, while the proportion of STEM universities soared from 30% in 1949 to over 70% by 1978. This “prioritizing science over humanities” policy was further reinforced after the reform and opening-up—Deng Xiaoping’s assertion that “science and technology are the primary productive forces” made STEM the core of the national catch-up strategy. The “211” and “985” projects of the 1980s and 1990s were essentially a resource tilt favoring “STEM first.” The current presidents, mostly born in the 1960s-1970s, were beneficiaries of this era’s higher education, and their paths to study and success were almost exclusively monopolized by STEM backgrounds. Into the 21st century, the “Double First-Class” initiative continues this logic, with STEM disciplines enjoying an absolute advantage in funding, projects, and evaluation systems, leading to a “glass ceiling” for humanities and social science talent in the academic power chain.
The selection mechanism is the institutional guarantee of this phenomenon. In China, the appointment of a university president is fundamentally a cadre selection process, emphasizing political reliability, academic authority, and the ability to secure resources. The system of Academician selection acts as a hidden barrier, heavily favoring STEM—over 80% of new Academicians in 2025 were from STEM. While humanities professors possess influence, they lack a similar “hard label” and find it difficult to prevail in the organizational department and Ministry of Education’s decision-making process. More profoundly, the party-administration combined governance model requires the president to balance administrative execution with alignment to national strategy. STEM backgrounds are more easily viewed as “technocrats,” such as the presidents of Tsinghua University (Mechanical Engineering) or Chai Liyuan of Tianjin University (Nonferrous Metallurgy). This mechanism creates a “STEM closed loop”: STEM presidents favor STEM vice presidents, and the internal promotion rate is as high as 80%, severely limiting the career advancement of humanities talent.
The historical path in the US is markedly different. From the founding of Harvard College in 1636, US universities were positioned as cradles of the liberal arts and general education. Even when Johns Hopkins pioneered the research university model in the late 19th century, it did not shake the “liberal arts soul” of the private elite universities. Since the 20th century, the professionalization of the presidency has matured, with the Board of Trustees-led selection mechanism playing a crucial role. The selection process is transparent, often lasting 12-18 months, with candidates often selected from across the country or even globally, and external appointments accounting for 70%. The Board primarily values leadership, crisis management, and humanistic vision, not just research output. For example, Princeton’s Eisgruber’s law background helps him coordinate policy, while Duke University’s Vincent Price’s communications background helps him better understand public opinion and manage crises. While public universities have seen a rise in STEM presidents, the system maintains a better balance between the liberal arts and sciences, thanks to the checks and balances of federal funding and alumni networks.
🧭 When the Boundary of Vision Becomes the Boundary of the University
In the past two decades, Chinese universities have proven the concept of “overtaking on a different track”: before 2005, not a single mainland university was in the world’s top 200; by 2025, there are 12 in the QS top 100. Paper citations have risen from long-term bottom placement to a solid second globally, and the total value of the National Natural Science Foundation surpasses that of the US. “Chang’e,” “Beidou,” and “Tianwen” have become national calling cards. These achievements are closely linked to the scientists who sit in the offices of the 985 university presidents today.
But the greater the miracle, the quieter the shadow. When 92% of the highest decision-makers in a country’s top universities come from the same knowledge spectrum, the university slowly learns to breathe one language, measure value by one standard, and allocate resources in one direction. Faculty find that publishing in Nature is a better path to promotion than spending half a year refining a core curriculum course; students find that working in a large lab to churn out papers is more “useful” than reading a complete set of A History of Western Philosophy. Humanities deans find that without an A+ in their subject assessment, they will always be at the back of the line for new building funding. This is not the deliberate action of any single president, but when almost all presidents share the same “success code,” the university is placed into an invisible mold and slowly grows into its shape.
A deeper, more insidious cost occurs where the term “spirit of the educator” is almost forgotten. Observers note that the true spirit of the educator is never empty moralizing but an almost instinctive habit. They are accustomed to deliberating between technology and ethics, rather than separating the two. They are accustomed to seeing the university as a “civilization community,” not just a “knowledge factory.” They are accustomed, when resources are limited, to first ask, “What is most important for the student’s character development?” rather than “Which project will yield the biggest results fastest?” They are accustomed, when facing the triple pressure of power, capital, and public opinion, to maintain a calm detachment, rather than rushing to prove their worth with “good-looking metrics.”
Recall that when Peking University was at its poorest, Cai Yuanpei reserved the highest-paying professorships for Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi, not for the engineering departments that could raise the most funds. When the Southwestern Associated University (Lianda) was suffering the most hardships, Mei Yiqi insisted that science students must take humanities and philosophy, and humanities students must take natural sciences, even when food was scarce. During Zhejiang University’s westward relocation, Zhu Kezhen still required every student to write a daily reflection diary, believing that “the ultimate purpose of university education is to make a person human, not a specialized tool.” These choices seem almost a luxury today, but they are the most concrete manifestation of the spirit of the educator: they always knew where the university’s true North Star lay.
Today, when presidents are almost universally experts in a specific field, they are naturally better at answering “What can we do?” but have fewer opportunities, and less institutional space, to ask “Ought we to do it?” and “What kind of person do we ultimately want to cultivate?” It is not that they do not want to, but the entire chain of selection, evaluation, and resource allocation rewards the first question while almost never rewarding the latter two. Over time, the “spirit of the educator” transforms from a learnable habit into an occasional flash of brilliance that only a few can manage in the high-pressure gaps.
This is not the personal limitation of STEM presidents but a systemic scarcity brought about by institutional homogenization. When issues like AI ethics, gene editing, algorithmic bias, data sovereignty, and carbon neutrality crash upon the university, society truly needs not more technical solutions but someone who can stand up and tell the public, with a clear, powerful, and value-penetrating voice: Technology is merely a means; humanity is the end. But when the leadership consistently lacks individuals who have received systemic training in the humanities and social sciences, the university’s response to these issues often appears slow, thin, or can only be dismissed as “technological neutrality.” In 2024, when a 985 university faced national controversy over a big data cooperation project, it ultimately had to resolve the issue with a technical explanation. It was not that the university was unwilling to address the ethics, but that the entire decision-making chain lacked people familiar with the language of ethics.
The true danger is that the university is quietly losing its ability for self-correction. It can build big buildings, publish papers, and climb rankings at an astonishing speed, but it finds it increasingly difficult to pause and ask, “What exactly are we cultivating our students to be?” It can send graduates into the world’s top laboratories, but it finds it increasingly difficult to cultivate the kind of person who can guard the bottom line of values in times of chaos, and remind everyone to stay clear-headed in times of prosperity.
The US once made the same mistake. In the 1970s, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford were briefly hijacked by research metrics, and undergraduate education nearly collapsed. They were only able to rediscover their soul by the Board of Trustees forcefully pulling the president’s background back to a liberal arts/STEM balance. Today’s Chinese universities stand at the same crossroads: hard power continues to surge, but the soft soul is quietly sounding the alarm.
The real challenge for Chinese higher education over the next decade is how to continue maintaining the STEM advantage while ensuring that the leadership’s vision is no longer limited by a single specialization, and how to allow the “spirit of the educator” to systemically grow, rather than rely on accidental occurrences of luck.