Tears of Needy Chinese College Students Arouse Social Concern

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Tears of Needy Chinese College Students Arouse Social Concern

It is normally a happy occasion to be admitted to an institution of higher learning after years of painstaking study and highly competitive entrance examinations.

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It is normally a happy occasion to be admitted to an institution of higher learning after years of painstaking study and highly competitive entrance examinations.

But Lin Xue from Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province wept for days when she received her admission letter to the China Medical University in Shenyang, the provincial capital, in 2000.

Although she longed to enter the university renowned in the field of medical science education, Lin decided, painfully, to hide the admission letter from her parents and give up the rare opportunity to change her future.

Lin said she was fully aware that her parents could by no means afford her tuition and living expenses in college. Both of her farmer parents were in poor health. Her father had been plagued by vascular disease for years, while her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer right before she took the national college entrance examination.

"My family was already deep in debt," she says. The farming income could barely make ends meet for the family of four. "As my parents have to pay for the schooling of my younger brother, I decided that my college tuition would be too much of a burden for them."

Lin gave up the idea of college and tried to find a job. Meanwhile, she recalls, she was in total despair, "not seeing any hope".

Things changed, however, when her story found its way to the media, which brought her sympathy and help. Doctors of a local hospital donated 6,000 yuan (720 US dollars) for her to start university the year after she had given it up.

In 2002, Lin passed the entrance examinations once again and realized her dream to go to the China Medical University, which agreed to waive her tuition fees until her family's financial situation improved.

Lin also received a donation of 2,000 yuan (240 US dollars) from the New Great Wall program launched by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFFPA) in 2002 to provide assistance for college students from needy families.

The cost of higher education began to soar with reforms in the mid 1990s, when the Chinese government stopped fully subsidizing it from the state budget. Tuition fees shot from several hundred yuan (scores of US dollars) a year in the 1980s to from 3,500 yuan(420 US dollars) to 8,000 yuan (960 US dollars), not counting room and board.

Such a cost made higher education an unattainable luxury for those from families living below the poverty line, whose per capita monthly income is less than 200 yuan (25 US dollars).

Thus the nation was confronted with the dilemma of whether children of such needy families, like Lin, should be deprived of the right to higher education just because of their financial straits.

Statistics from the CFFPA indicate that about 20 percent of the country's 16 million college students are from poor families.

The Ministry of Education had warned colleges and universities to care for these students and provide them with aid when initiating the higher education reform. Last year it launched a state scholarship program to provide a total of 200 million yuan (24 million US dollars) a year for 45,000 needy college students with excellent academic performances, who are also entitled to a tuition waiver.

At the same time, the ministry demanded that colleges and universities open a way for those newly enrolled students from needy families to straighten out their financial problems.

Following the tragedy of Jing Yanmei's father, a farmer in Shaanxi province who committed suicide because he was unable to afford his daughter's college cost, the ministry reiterated its policy that not a single student should be denied a college education due to financial difficulties.

The Northeast Teachers University, at which Jing was enrolled, has provided the girl with opportunities to improve her financial situation, and she has also been given a donation from the New Great Wall program.

"The point is," observes Tang Jun, a researcher of social policy with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), "the state-funded colleges and universities should not be managed and operated as profit-seeking enterprises."

Although he said charging for higher education is reasonable in the market economy, poor students should be given access to relief.

He Jianming, a writer known for his studies of the issue of students from needy families, notes that the issue is drawing more and more attention from society and policy makers.

"As poverty can't be eliminated overnight, there are bound to be many needy families in our country," says He, who wrote "Turning Tears to Gold," a report on the plight of needy college students based on his investigation of 40 colleges and universities across China, which sold well and aroused extensive public concern for these students.

He is delighted to see an effective mechanism of assisting poor college students is being established, which includes bank loans, social relief and part-time work opportunities in addition to scholarships.

"That brings hope not only to those needy students but also to our society," he says.

Many people share He's feeling. "A few thousand yuan might not mean so much to us," said a donor of the New Great Wall program who asked to remain anonymous. "But to those needy students, that makes a great difference. I feel rewarded if what I do can give them a hand on their way to success."

An employee of a real estate company, he donated 2,000 yuan with a friend. "We have benefited from development and reform and are becoming better off," said the man signing the donation contract as Chen Biao. "We should care more about those who are not so lucky."

He Daofeng, vice-chairman of the CFFPA, says that college students will become the backbone in China's future development, "so society should give them due care and assist students from needy families."

Refusing to label needy college students as disadvantaged, Dong Yaohui, secretary general of the China Great Wall Association, insists that assisting needy college students is not poverty relief in a general sense.

"We do not assist them out of sympathy," he said. "Instead, we do it out of respect and admiration for their courage and success. We are cheering them on for further success."

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