Since 1989, Mongolian higher education has undergone a phenomenal privatization. Part of this involves private finance and governance for the public institutions. The other part involves an extraordinary proliferation of private institutions, to over 200 in just a decade. Prior to 1989 higher education consisted of only a handful of institutions, all public. Much of the impetus for the private proliferation comes from the overall marketization of the economy as well as the increased proportion of secondary-school graduates who head to higher education. Typical private institutions are small and poorly funded.
On January 4, 1254, Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer William of Rubruck was granted the priviledge of an audience at the great Mongol Möngke Khan in his court in Karakorum.
On September 23, 1215 AD Kublai Khan, the second son of Tolui and Sorghaghtani Beki, and a grandson of Genghis Khan, was born. Considering the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, his realm reached from the Pacific to the Black Sea, from Siberia to modern day Afghanistan – one fifth of the world's inhabited land area.