Abstract: The controversy around the target, content and method of College English education is still heated nowadays in China. Through the retrospect of different views and practice, this article contends that the fundamental grounds for the existence of College English are demands, i.e. national interest, social and individual demands, plus specific conditions of university. Via the analysis on different demands, this paper argues that university policy makers and college English teachers should break the bondage of inherent thinking mode, establish an overall education concept, and adopt bottom-up approach to build a diversified, personalized and targeted language-in-education system.