Chinese higher education has experienced rapid growth since 1978. Particularly in the last ten years, China's higher education system has faced massive differentiation. To grasp and evaluate the magnitude of changes, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University has decided to elaborate a classification of higher education institutions. The latter is inspired by the famous »Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education«. Next to the number of degrees awarded and the ratio of doctoral degrees to baccalaureate degrees, the annual research income from governments and the per capita articles are the criteria used to construct the classification. In this presentation, Nian Cai Liu tells more about the history of Chinese higher education and the attempt to describe it from the bird's eye view.