A wave of boycotts and mass protests in response to China’s education authorities launching a campaign to merge “private colleges” with vocational schools has spread from the southern provinces including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Hunan, to the north, with protests in Shanxi Province now drawing attention. China’s so-called private colleges are privately funded and operated schools that are affiliated to prestigious public universities. Students from the Taiyuan-based Business College of Shanxi University staged campus protests on June 10 after they learned that the title of their school had been changed without notification on the website of China Higher Education Student Information and Career Center (CHESICC), a national agency that shares graduates’ information with HR managers. Online footage shows large crowds gathering and shouting anti-merger slogans. Protests turned into physical conflicts with police officers. Change of College Name Chen Xin (an alias), a sophomore in the college, told The Epoch Times on June 12 that …