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I think you and the poster you responded to are concerned about complementary issues. You are saying "ability to pay is not a prerequisite", whereas the prior

• adventured 8y ago
  I agree with that very broadly, which is why I acknowledged it's similar. The point I'm disagreeing with, is that I don't believe it's exactly like the US. It's a bit different in the US because of the selection available. The US has dozens of large universities to choose from that would all rank among the top 100 globally. Those schools have often been established for 100-200 years or more, with the US having an opportunity to build up a lot of high quality universities over time. That isn't the case in China (yet), their growing affluence is literally only ~15 years old, it's dramatically more pressurized accordingly. China has a lot of increasingly affluent people competing for far fewer top tier universities, which is why they've been sending so many students to the US and Europe.