 There is much happiness and excitement among the new students who begin college life as the new academic year starts on September 1. But what happens for those who are financially burdened?
Success is exhilarating. Most of the new college and university enrollees have weathered three years of intensive study and prevailed against fierce competition at the national college entrance examination. Their enrolment is a dream come true. They are the chosen few. But they have worked for this, and they deserve the pleasure of success.
But the initial joy is short lived for students from low-income families. Instead of imagining the colorful college life ahead of them, they have massive worries. Where and how will they gather the tuition fees together? How will they cover the increased living expenses, living away from home?
Finding tuition fees and living expenses are financial problems that vex not only the needy students, but the colleges and universities as well. It is hoped that more work will go in, to resolve a pressing social problem of unfair financial disadvantage.
Wu Xiaorong could hardly contain herself when she received the admission notice. She opened the envelope with trembling hands, and read the paper again and again even though the notice was short and to the point. When the reporter asks if she has always been expecting this result, she confirms that she has been looking forward to this for three years.
Wu Xiaorong was reduced to stunned silence when she saw the size of tuition fee she would be required to pay. She had to remit 9,000 yuan to the school, which meant that the family had to raise 10,000 yuan for her. This sum represented a fortune for the family. From the day Wu Xiaorong filled in her choices of schools, she did not return home. She stayed in the county to tutor two middle school students, to earn some money.
Wu Xiaorong expresses that she wanted to make use of this time to share the family burden as best as she could.
Wu Xiaorong is of Miao nationality. Her family lives in a mountainous village in Hunan Province. Wu Xiaorong's very high score in the national college entrance examination gained her admission to Peking University. Her success was big news for this quiet village, but rather awkward for her parents.
Wu Xiaorong's Mother said she was very happy when I first heard the news and she is still feeling happy now. But she doesn't know where to get the money they need.
There are five in Wu Xiaorong's family. The grain the family raises is just enough to meet their basic needs, and they have no other source of income. Wu's elder sister dropped out after junior high school to help with the farm work. Her little sister also had to quit school for lack of money.
According to her mother, Wu Xiaorong insisted on going to school. It was hard to pay for her education. She didn't even have money to buy clothes. Her aunt and uncle provided her family with clothing.
The Wu family has always made a kind of preserved fruit, a delicacy the local people like to serve at weddings. Sometimes they would sell this at the market to meet the expense of daily necessities. But since Wu Xiaorong was accepted by Peking University the whole family has been busy. Besides preserving fruits, her mother and sister have spent their nights making insoles that sell at eight yuan a pair. Though it takes them four days to finish one pair, this little enterprise has brought them in several hundred yuan. The family has also sold preserved bamboo shoots.
Wu Xiaorong's mother tells us dried bamboo shoots are sold at three to four yuan for half a kilogram, dunked ones are worth two yuan. One kilogram of dried bamboo shoots generates three kilos after being dunked. She can earn two more yuan if she sell them dunked.
Wu Xiaorong says that her living costs during her high school years were totally dependent on the money her mother earned selling bamboo shoots and Tung oil seeds—about 100 yuan per month. This went on food and books. All her clothes were donated by others. Wu Xiaorong seldom went back home, though the boat fare from the school to her home cost only one yuan. The whole family are doing their best to gather tuition fees for Wu Xiaorong, but they know it is far from enough.
Wu Xiaorong decides that she will have to borrow if the family cannot gather the entire tuition fee needed.
Ruan Zheng's family lived in a disordered lane. Ruan Zheng's father got this wooden house from his work unit. Apart from Ruan Zheng's various school diplomas on the walls, there is barely any furniture in the place.
Ruan Desheng, Ruan Zheng's father explains that he had no income after being laid off. The government gave him only 80 yuan each month as a minimum living allowance. He feels very awkward. He is overjoyed that his daughter got enrolled by the university, but he is worrying about the tuition fee and living costs. Four years will amount to a very big sum.
Ruan Zheng is a bit of a stranger in her family home as she has lived with an aunt ever since she entered junior high school. She did not initially think about the worries that the tuition fees would cause her parents.
Ruan Zheng thought there would be no problem about the tuition once she was admitted. Now she has in fact thought a lot about it. She has considered doing a part time job while she is at school, or applying for education loan. She express that since she has made it this far, then should go ahead. And she believes herself will go well.
Ruan Desheng has started a chicken farm in a deserted classroom in the suburb, with help from the local government. Because of their lack of funds, the couple could offer only their manual labor. A farming company chose the breeds, and took care of the technology and distribution plans. They earn 50-80 cents for one chicken. They raise four batches of 2,000 chickens a year and the total earnings could sustain the family.
Ruan Desheng admits there is no other source of income to pay for Ruan Zheng's schooling except what he earns from raising chickens. If business is good he can earn more. But sometimes he suffers losses and then he will have to pay.
The family has a hard life, but they are anxious that their daughter does not worry. Ruan Zheng comes to the chicken farm and helps her parents in any way she can. She knows that the sale of the chickens will help meet the cost of her tuition fees. Actually it has been hard going for the family to pay for her education since she entered her third year of junior high school. They have been helped by a local official Cao Chenghua who has sent the family 500 yuan at the beginning of each semester.
Cao Chenghua says it is a thorny problem to get several thousand yuan together for her college tuition. Cao hopes that she can borrow some from her relatives. The sale of the chickens will bring in some more. And then the government is also expected to provide the rest.
But the government aid can only solve the problem for a very few needy students. Take the situation at Jingzhou No. 1 Middle School. Thirty percent of the more than 160 students enrolled by key universities qualify as needy. Xiao Hong was admitted by Tsinghua University with the best science score in Huaihua city. But Xiao Hong didn't even own a pair of leather shoes. Besides the slippers on his feet, he had only a pair of sandals he had worn for many years. The school master said that there was one Tsinghua enrollee, whose mother was going to their house in order to pay for his college education. He said these students had been given financial assistance at high school.
Li Songqing, the school master of Jingzhou No.1 Middle School says, most of them are from the countryside. These students are very hard working with great ambition. Some poverty-stricken students insist on studying against all odds.
Twenty percent of the thousand or so students from Huaihua City enrolled by key universities across the country this year are from poor families. There is a local education program to aid excellent high school graduates who have financial needs. But there are only enough funds to assist eight young people.
The education ministry issued an emergency notification at the end of July, forbidding any institution of higher learning from discriminating against financially needy enrollees in any way. It also ordered institutions to transfer 10 percent of their tuition fees to raise the subsidy levels for students engaged in part time jobs to further relieve their financial burden.
Emergency Notification from the Ministry of Education on How to Aid Financially Burdened Students specifies as follows:
1. All institutions of higher learning are to ensure that all financially needy enrollees are enrolled without question;
2. Under no circumstances may any institution of higher learning reject a financially needy enrollee;
3. 10 percent of the tuition fees are to be transferred to raise the subsidy levels for students engaged in part time jobs in schools to further relieve their financial burden.
In the admission office of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, staff are busy processing admissions. Each admission notices has two papers attached - one telling students how to apply for a national education loan, the other a questionnaire on the students' financial status. The school authorities said that the national loan was the main source of tuition fee assistance for financially burdened students. The fact is the banks set limits on the number of national loans they would provide.
Zhao Jining, the vice Party secretary of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications introduces that the national education aid loan program applies only to a certain proportion of the loan applicants, say 15% for our school. That means a significant percentage of the financially burdened students are not able to get the loans.
On the one hand, the national loan to aid education provides the main means for financially burdened students to provide for their tuition. On the other hand, the banks, having weighed the risks, set quotas on the applicants. In the western region, the school authorities in Lanzhou University were even more perplexed.
The sum of educational loans needed by students at Lanzhou University is about 18 million yuan every year, but only 5 million yuan has been granted to Lanzhou University this year. If the students cannot get loans from the national program, they have to apply for school loans. But each person is entitled to only 2000 or so yuan of school loans every year, only about half of the tuition needed. Universities have been puzzling over the loan application difficulties.
Chen Liyuan, the director of admission office, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications tells us that the school depends on students' tuition fees to fund the running of the school. There is not much government funding. It will be a heavy burden for the school if we can' t collect all the tuition fees.
All institutions of higher learning promised they would guarantee smooth enrolment for financially burdened students this year. But the institutions were not sure which students qualified for full loans. Furthermore, it must be remembered, the loan is only for tuition fees. Impoverished students must meet their living costs by finding part-time work opportunities.
Chen Jie comes from a village in the suburb of Chongqing Municipality. He stayed at school during the summer vacation in order to earn money for the next semester through the school's part-time job program.
He says he earned 8 yuan per hour and worked three and half hours a day. So he could earn 20-30 yuan a day.
Financially needy students like Xiaochen account for around 18 percent of the new enrollees every year at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Right now, over 1500 students here have been registered as having inadequate finances. Three to four students job-share each position offered by the school part-time job program. The difficulty is mounting as the number of financially burdened students increases.
One of school faculty Ma Ruishi says they can only offer so many jobs in such a small place. It is very difficult for them to develop new job opportunities.
Finding job opportunities for students is not the only problem. The education ministry has stipulated that 10% of students' tuition fees should be laid aside to subsidise the part-time wages earned at the school. Schools also feel financially pressed.
Li Zhixiang, the vice president of Beijing Institute of Technology says tuition fees plus the national funding cannot cover the cost of educating a student. The cost is much higher than those two sums added together. If they must transfer 10 percent of the tuition fee to subsidize the part-time job program in the school, it in fact weakens their financial ability to keep the school operating.
The official support notice issued by the education ministry and the availability of some temporary loans hardly alleviates the problems of financially needy students wanting to attend colleges and universities. In addition to the government, schools and banks, some kind of social welfare system is needed to bridge the financial gap. This year China's Poverty-Relief Fund proposes to collect over 2000 million yuan to aid over 10,000 students to attend universities. This is the largest ever social aid program established for financially needy students.
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