Chen Yixin (not her real name), a sophomore at the Chongqing Water Resources and Electric Engineering College, has been invited for private talks by her tutor on several occasions since the start of the new academic year in September.

Rural residents in Chongqing attend a briefing organized by local authorities on switching household registration status. Some colleges in the municipality are allegedly forcing students to switch from rural to urban registration. Photo: IC

However, it was not academic issues her tutor wanted to discuss. Instead, the tutor was looking to persuade Chen to switch her household registration, or hukou, from rural to urban status.

The talks followed the announcement of a policy change by the local government in July that aims to give 10 million rural residents urban status by 2020. The move will boost the number of people with urban household registration in the municipality from 29 percent of the total population to 60 percent.

Having an urban hukou was once a dream for many rural residents, as urban residents are entitled to medical and education facilities in the city, while their rural counterparts may need to pay higher fees for the same services. So why do people like Chen need so much persuasion to make the switch? The sting lies in a condition of the policy stipulating that rural residents can only gain urban status if they give up their rights to use farmlands and housing sites.

China has seen an unprecedented rate of urbanization in recent years, and many rural residents want to hold on to their land rights in order to cash in on compensation authorities are obliged to give if they seize their lands for development.

Under pressure

Because of their access to such large numbers of rural students, colleges are now coming under pressure from authorities to convince them to take up urban status. According to a document on the local government website, household registration switch rates will now be one of the criteria for assessing college performance. Institutions that "perform well" in that respect will be praised, while those that do not will be openly criticized, the difference often resulting in the size of funding a college receives..

Chen said her tutor often spends three or four hours trying to convince her to switch status. "My tutor said I am selfish and obstructing the development of Chongqing if I insist on my rural hukou," she said.

The Education Department of Chongqing said at a press conference Thursday that it is up to rural students whether they want to change their residential status. However, a document posted on the department website in September asked colleges to achieve a 90 percent success rate in persuading rural students to take on urban status by the end of October.

Some 667,000 college students with rural hukou in Chongqing are among those eligible to switch status.

"Starting last month, our tutor began pressurizing us to give up our rural hukou. Those who refused were told that they would have no chance of applying for fellowships or scholarships, and may even have trouble getting their diplomas," a student majoring in safety engineering at a Chongqing institution, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Global Times.

The student finally bowed to the pressure. "Without my rural hukou, I can't get compensation if my land is seized by real estate developers or the local government in the future. Neither of my parents wants me to switch my hukou. But I need the 2000 yuan ($300) fellowship to help me finish my last college year," said the student.

Some colleges even told freshmen that if they want to "sit in a college classroom," they need to switch their hukou, the student said.