College education: a luxury that can take your life
Annual fees for college education are up one thousand dollars per year. In the economic progress of the new China, the government has cancelled subsidies. Suicide or selling organs has become the only way out for many parents.
"My son: when you read this letter, I will be gone from this world. That is because I am unable to afford your college education. I am too ashamed to face you. All I can do now is atone for my guilt with my death."
These are the words of Sun Shoujun, a farmer in northeastern China, written before he drank pesticide on August 1. Then, he carefully placed all his assets - 52 yuan - on top of the suicide note and closed his eyes for the last time. Three days earlier, his son, Sun Dapeng, had received an acceptance letter from a local college. He had scored enough points in the national entrance exam and, so, had won a chance for a brighter future. But the letter also enclosed an invoice for 5,308 yuan in tuition fees.
Sun Shoujun's case was not an isolated one. A week earlier, 42-year-old Lin Bingxin, from Fujian province, had no way of paying the entrance fee for her son's university education. So, she drank rat poison to end her life. A year ago, the thought of being unable to pay his daughter's high college fees also drove Jing Tongshi, of Yulin, Shanxi province, to poison himself.
How does a college education become a killer? For one thing, mainland universities have been charging ever-higher fees. The rate of increase far outpaces the rise in disposable income for a great number of families, especially among the rural population. For example, Fuzhou University's annual fees are 5,460 yuan - a 40 per cent increase over last year.
On average, the going rate for one year's college tuition is six or seven times higher than it was in 2000. In the same period, the net annual income for city residents has risen from 6,300 yuan to 8,480 yuan, while farmers' income has grown from 2,250 yuan to 2,630 yuan. For farmers like Sun, the rising education costs mean that they would have to work for two years just to put a child through one year in college. And that is before any basic needs are met for the family.
Clearly, something is wrong. Before the communists came to power, they attacked the nationalist government for turning a blind eye to social injustice where children from poor families could never afford to go to school.
So, in 1952, the new government made sure that all college education was free to the working class. This lasted until the mid-1990s when the government, worried about the stalling economy, came up with the idea of commercialising education as a "new growth engine". Thus, China began experimenting with fee-based university admissions in 1994, and formally abolished free entry to colleges in 1996.
The annual budget for education accounts for a mere 3.3 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, below the world average of 4.4 per cent.
China ranks after the Philippines and even some African nations when it comes to cutting a slice of national wealth for education, despite its claim that the party attaches great importance to the cause.
With nowhere to turn for help, some people chose to end it all with a glass of pesticide. Others, however, refuse to give in. Zhang Xi was admitted to a Beijing college that charges 8,000 yuan for the first year of tuition. In order to raise the funds, her mother stationed herself in front of a local hospital, holding a placard that read: "For sale: my kidney for my daughter's tuition."
*Li Yong-yan is an analyst of China's business and politics (from the South China Morning Post)
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