BEIJING -- China's education authority issued a list of the country's 2,845 authorized institutions of higher learning on Thursday.

The 2,845 schools accredited by the Ministry of Education (MOE) include 447 private, 7 jointly run by Chinese and foreign universities, and 292 colleges for life-long learning, while most Chinese institutions of higher learning are public.

The MOE issues the list every year, partly in effort to alert the public of unauthorized "diploma mills" which are still seen in a lot of places despite repeated bans.

A commercial website, sdaxue.com, has issued a list of pseudo colleges this week, the third of its kind, naming a total of 210 diploma mills suspected of illegal enrollment and online swindling.

The MOE list can be accessed via the website, www.moe.edu.cn.