Reducing the cost of education is the most effective way of
lowering college students' tuition fees, and consequently makes
higher education more accessible to poor students, said an article
in Wenhui Daily. An excerpt follows:
The new school year always brings with it a new round of problems
with poor students in China having to find their fees for
study.
It is unfair that children born into poor families who cannot
afford to send them to school should miss out on the benefits of
education.
They are the people who suffer from this ever-widening gap between
the rich and the poor in China.
Society, colleges and educational institutions in particular should
be responsible for providing students with easier access to
schooling.
Ever-increasing tuition fees have driven average families to severe
financial crises, and have deprived many poverty-stricken students
of a proper education.
The government needs to increase its spending on public education,
but colleges and other institutes of learning could also do more.
The most obvious solution is to lower the cost of education.
Costs could be cut in many ways - for instance, the money spent on
lavish infrastructure facilities or luxury and needless
buildings.
Many universities are currently preoccupied with building
high-standard dormitory apartments with private toilets, telephones
and broadband capability in each room. Students enjoy living
standards that even outshine some hotels.
Some college leaders pay visits to famous resorts or even go abroad
for site-seeing on the expense of students' tuitions while claiming
that they are there having meetings.
To effectively reduce the costs of education, various methods
should be taken into consideration.
First, the meaning of education should be re-defined. Education
should be simply confined to educating people and not be treated as
a profit-making industry. Colleges should switch their attention
from emptying parents' purses to cultivating students' minds.
Second, educational institutions should strictly observe their own
behavior. A large proportion of school funds is used to pamper
inspection teams. Parents have no obligation in paying for their
accommodation and should not have to fork out for it.
Third, tightened inspections and audits should be adopted in the
financial management of colleges.
Finally, benevolent colleges that are helping poor students out of
financial difficulties should be rewarded.
Joint efforts from government and colleges alike could help give
meaning to the saying that "education knows no bounds."
(China Daily September 21, 2004)