Abstract：As an educational reform institution, the emergence of undergraduate universities has political foundations, economic roots, and educational demands. The development patterns of these institutions are characterized by diverse forms of operation, a sudden increase in enrollment scale, and strong development momentum. Situated in an educational field deeply embedded with various factors such as policy, culture, and values, the legitimacy of vocational undergraduate universities is put to the test. From the perspective of new institutionalism, although these universities have obtained legal policy protection in terms of regulatory legitimacy and societal value support in normative legitimacy, they face a crisis of legitimacy imbalance in the culturalcognitive legitimacy aspect due to culturalcognitive biases. In response, China should promote the implementation of policies under institutional constraints to enhance regulatory legitimacy, deepen the value identification aligned with societal expectations to strengthen normative legitimacy, and accelerate cultural iteration in the context of survival scenarios to construct culturalcognitive legitimacy, enabling multiple stakeholders to form a collective force.
