This article constructs an index model of higher education development from the 2020 data of 34 prefecture-level cities in Northeast China. GeoDetector was used to find the explanatory power of higher education for economic growth. The stronger the explanatory power, the greater its effect on enabling a city to move beyond the middle-income stage. The results indicated that economically developed cities had advanced levels of higher education development. The development level of higher education in provincial capitals and sub-provincial cities is among the highest in Northeast China. Furthermore, higher education significantly explains economic growth, with the scale of education having a stronger explanatory power than the quality of education. In addition, regional heterogeneity exists in the explanatory power of the scale and quality of education on economic growth. Specifically, the effect of the scale of higher education on economic growth is significantly greater than the quality of higher education in large cities. In contrast, the opposite is true in medium-sized cities. For small cities, the effect of higher education on economic growth is minimal.
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