Chinese universities are expected to face financial pressures or even survival challenge this decade as student numbers continue to drop mainly due to a decline in the country's birthrate since the 1990s, according to a report.

The report, released by the China Education Online, or www.eol.cn, which is under the Ministry of Education, forecasted that the downward trend in enrollments may last until the end of the decade.

Continued decrease in student numbers would deplete many tertiary education providers' sources of revenue, as the institutions are heavily reliant on tuition fees, the report said.

The number of candidates for the annual nationwide college-entrance exam, or "gaokao," had dropped by nearly 2 million by 2010 after the number hit the peak of 10.5 million in 2008.

According to Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, China's birthrate was about 12 per thousand during the past decade, while the figure was over 21 per thousand in 1990.

Enrollments of pupils had shrunk nearly 30 percent from 139.5 million students in 1998 to 100.7 million in 2009, and during that period, 54 percent of primary schools across the country were closed, it said.

Another sign of the decrease in future college students could be drawn from the data in China's latest census conducted in last November.

The census showed that juniors aged below 14 made up 16.6 of the mainland's total population, which was 6.29 percentage points lower than that in the 2000 census.

The growing interest by Chinese of studying abroad would also have an impact on the country's university enrollments, said the report.

China issued its Medium and Long-term National Educational Reform and Development Plan (2010-2020) a year ago, promising to improve the quality and structure of the country's higher education.