Opportunities for higher education in China have grown continually since the reestablishment of the college entrance examination system in 1978, with a percentage of overall enrollment that soared from 1.56 percent in 1978 to 15 percent in 2002, showing that China had already entered the era of mass higher education. However, does the expansion of higher education and an overall increase in opportunities actually mean a greater degree of fairness in higher education? Most studies of disparity in opportunities for higher education in China today focus on issues such as unbalanced development among different regions and disparities between city and country or male and female, with studies of differences in social stratum being comparatively few, and even though some articles have discussed this issue, their discussions are not supported by reliable data. In this study, the author attempts to present a concrete hypothesis concerning how such factors as social stratum based strategic behavior affect the allocation of opportunities for higher education. The results of this analysis show that, while the mechanism for gaining opportunities to access higher education is complex, the basic thread that runs through it can be clearly seen: Though differences in nature among the various types of higher education have determined that opportunities for them are governed by different models, the scarcity of such social opportunities and the differing effects of social-class background and social status were clearly present throughout the 1978-2003 period, while, at the same time, the different types of senior high level education corresponded clearly to the differences among types of higher education. (Contains 3 notes and 1 table.)