Universities as financing vehicles of (sub)urbanisation: the development of university towns in Shanghai

•The spatial expansion of universities in China is an integral component of the capital accumulation strategy at the interface of higher education and urbanization.•In the development of university town projects, universities functioned as a financing vehicle for (sub)urban development.•The financialisation of universities was motivated by opportunity-driven strategies, intertwined with central-local tensions, and it was implemented within the state system and through multiple state agencies.•The study highlights the importance of understanding the variegated forms of the financialisation of the state by looking at diverse financial contexts, inter-scalar interactions, and operational mechanisms.