Abstract: The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China put forward the new goal of building a high-quality education system and a powerful country in education. To promote the improvement of higher education quality, it is necessary to draw on social resources more extensively. As a special kind of social organization, university education foundations are important links between universities and society, which plays a significant role to the construction and development of first-class universities. Giving impetus to the enhancement of the organizational structure and modernization of the governance capacity of university foundations is in line with requirements of the times for the construction of first-class universities. At present, a series of problems such as unbalanced and insufficient development as well as imperfect governance system of university foundations have become constraints to the construction of first-class universities in the new era. To comprehensively improve the governance level and capacity of university foundations, it is necessary to raise the construction of university education foundations to an institutionalized level and carry out top-level construction, so that university education foundations can provide strong support for first-class universities and first-class disciplines in the process of standardized development.

Key words: education foundation, the construction of first-class universities, multiple governance, higher educational reform