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Astronomical child education costs in China

www.chinanews.cn 2005-02-28 15:19:00

Chinanews, Feb. 28 (By Liu Liu) - Bringing up a child has already been
seen as a family investment project. However the surge of education costs
is by no means justified.
According to some media, the direct economic costs of bringing up a child
from 0 to 16 years old are reportedly reaching about 250,000 yuan. The
amount goes up to as much as 480,000 yuan when college education costs
are considered. The total family "investment" in an unmarried and
out-of-school youngster before his or her 30th birthday will reach
490,000 yuan.
Such costs are certainly beyond ordinary-income families, let alone rural
families.
This report titled as "Children's Economic Cost: Change and Optimization
in the Transformational Period" came from Xu Anqi, a researcher from the
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Entrusted by the Population and
Family Planning Commission of Shanghai's Xuhui district, Xu selected all
his survey samples, 749 families in total, from this district.
Similar surveys conducted previously in China never included
communication expenses, such as the expense on computers, mobile phones
and internet connections in the information era. The survey this time
found that the annual expenses of the abovementioned items ranged from
317 yuan in kindergarten to 2,500 yuan in high school years. Moreover,
the annual per capita health and medical expenses and insurances are over
1,000 yuan in all stages.
The report also observed some deep structural changes in China after
studying the economic costs for bringing up children to 16 years old in
the past 20 years.
It is learnt that the arbitrary educational charges hit 200 billion yuan
in the past 10 years. College tuition has increased from 200 yuan in 1989
to the current 10,000 yuan, 50 times the previous amount.
Xu Anqi believed that the government should increase education investment
and not transfer too much burden to the families. Meanwhile, the
government should provide more scholarships and student loans, work-study
programs, subsidies for disadvantaged students, tuition waivers and other
programs in order to ensure equal educational rights for those students
from poor families. Without such a system or other help, disadvantaged
families would have no choice but giving up on children's dreams.

E-mail: zhangqinghua@chinanews.com.cn Tel: 8610-88387443 Fax:
8610-68327649

Copyright� 2004 Chinanews.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Disclaimer: viewpoints in the website do not represent China News Service

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