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Higher education should be affordable for ordinary people, says a commentary in Nanfang Metropolis News. An excerpt follows:

 

The education authorities have just released two news items: Universities will stick to their current tuition standard and the State will earmark more money to help university students who cannot afford higher education.

 

Since the universities started to raise tuition in 1997, higher education now costs about 10 times more than in the early 1990s. But the average income has only increased four times.

 

Behind the drastic tuition rise is a changed approach to higher education: Individuals and families should share education costs with the State.

 

With this change, higher education has become one of the biggest financial burdens for ordinary people.

 

The current level of college tuition, according to the authorities, is calculated to be 25 percent of the total cost for each college student.

 

However, it is almost impossible to get an exact figure about the costs of unneeded university employees. Moreover, higher education is under the monopoly of the State universities without substantial competition. This only makes it harder to calculate the real costs of universities.

 

The affordability of higher education is an issue beyond the balance between university costs and revenues.

 

By August 2005, some 4.05 million of the 15.6 million university students did not have enough money to cover their tuition and living expenses.

 

Most rural families and low-income urban families find it extremely hard to support a college student.

 

If the authorities only regard higher education as a consumption item for individual families rather than a long-term investment in benefits to the family and the State, a brighter prospect for the country will be neglected.

 

(China Daily May 24, 2007)