What drives Chinese private colleges internationalization?

Internationalization of private higher education has attracted considerable interest recently. After clarifying the status quo of Chinese private colleges, we proposed the conceptual model of Chinese private colleges’ internationalization. This paper adopted a “strategy tripod” perspective in integrating the impact of the resource-, contingency-, and institution-based factors on Chinese private colleges’ internationalization. Propositions were developed to indicate the driving forces of Chinese private colleges’ internationalization and showed the influence of Chinese private colleges’ internationalization on their performance like reputation and income. Generally, internationalization of Chinese private colleges was an important way to improve their performance in the long run.   Key words: Chinese private colleges, internationalization, driving forces, strategy tripod.