Professor Song is a research affiliate of the Rural Education Action Project. His research interests include educational economics, education for migrant children, and pre-school educational finance. Professor Song has previously worked at the Dean's Office of Peking University and managed innovative educational programs, including experiential liberal arts education, and the Chun-Tsung Endowment set up by the Nobel Prize of Physics winner Mr. Tsung-Dao Lee. Professor Song has also managed Peking University's course evaluation, and coordinated senior faculty's research workshops.

Dr. Yingquan Song is an associate professor of educational finance in the China Institute for Educational Finance Research (CIEFR), Peking University.  His research field is economics of education with a focus on financing of education for children from underprivileged families.  Particularly, his studies examine financing of compulsory education for migrant children in urban areas, financing of early childhood education and care (ECCE), and vocational secondary education in China.

He has served as a research consultant or principal investigator for various research projects sponsored by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) of China, Ministry of Education (MOE) of China, the Word Bank, UNICEF, International Initiatives for Impact Evaluation (3ie), and many other governmental and non-governmental agencies. 

He received his Ph.D. in economics of education from the University of California at Berkeley (2005), his master's degree in engineering from Tianjin University (1995), and bachelor's degree in mathematics from Sichuan Normal University (1991). He served as the director of the Office of Educational Evaluation at Peking University (1998-2000).