Re-examining the Mission of Universities in Circumstance of Mass Higher Education

The mission of universities is an old contestable theme in the history of higher education.We should pay much attention to harmonizing four issues: how to understand the root of the expansion of higher education;how to reinforce liberal education;how to balance the relation between equality and excellence;and how to harmonize the relationship between university,government and market.All these are based on the orientation about the ultimate goal of universities.There is no such a thing,in any society,as only one type of university,or one mission of a university.The ultimate mission of a university is still the transference of the traditional wisdom and the important ideas of the time to the young generations.Others,such as training leaders,knowledge innovation,professional training for higher levels,elegance culture in a particular society,conventionalized social moral,social reforms and such should be additional functions.Modern universitis must make students and the pulic understand that their ultimate mission is: not of strategems for profits or for employment;rather,modern universities should inspire the students' rationalistic potence,cultivate their ability of how to treat the capability that individuals,society and history are demanded from the long-term and round perspective.