This book examines the directions of local higher education policy in contemporary China since reform and opening up. It involves investigating rationales and conceptualizing analytical framework of shaping multiple type-based local higher education system, including the local undergraduate universities, skill-based local colleges, and technical-oriented local higher education institutions. This book offers an in-depth understanding of problems and strategies in regard to addressing complicated development of local higher education institutions in recent decades in China. In addition, this book also involves exploring local undergraduate universities in China, the current mechanism of local universities from the perspective of organizational transformation, the emergence of application and skill-based local colleges and universities in China, the vocational education development in China as one major type of local universities, the local technical universities' development in China from multiple perspectives, and the professional groups in local vocational colleges.