Enrollment to Start; Fees up

Beijing students who took this year's national college entrance exams swarmed into the capital's colleges to get advice on how to enroll for higher education.

Several top universities, such as Beijing University, Qinghua University and Renmin University, set up their own advice centers once results of the exams were released on Monday.

Students wanting to continue their education will have to say by this Friday which colleges they want to go to.

Qinghua and Beijing universities expect to be the most popular destinations for students with top grades.

He Runfeng, a student from Beijing's Shunyi No 1 High School, got this year's top mark -- a score of 683 from five subjects -- in the capital. He said he wanted to go to Qinghua University.

Universities and colleges will begin enrolling students from next month. The process will last the whole of August.

Fees for domestic colleges will see a sharp increase this year, averaging 4,000 to 6,000 yuan (US$481 to 722) for a year.

Some subjects like economics, biology, law, English and journalism are expected to be very popular. All of them will charge higher than usual fees.

Unpopular colleges or courses will have lower fees, but will still charge 3,000 to 4,000 yuan (US$361 to 481) a year.

Local education administration sources said the money paid by students towards their courses would account for 25 per cent of the cost of teaching them. The government will pay the rest..

China's major banks, such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China, have promised to provide low-interest loans to help poorer students complete their studies.

Many colleges are also providing free education to some extremely poor students.



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