The poor can't afford the universities is because the fee is too low?

On November 27th, the president of Guanghua Management School (Beijing University) Zhang Weiying, attend the "2007 China Guangda high-end Economic Forum" in Zhengzhou. He said, the reason why the poor can not afford to go to university in China is because the fee is too low. "Studying in Beijing University as an undergraduate student cost 20,000 yuan per year, the tuition fee is about 4,000 yuan, and the remaining 16,000 yuan is subsidized by the government. It is the poor subsidizing the rich. I think a really good system is that you can charge highly, but you would spent 80 percent in scholarships, only in this way can the poor afford the universities."　
　
As a well-known economist, Professor Zhang Weiying's idea of using this economic means to put the solutions is a bit too ridiculous in my opinion. In the present China, it is not implemented. Professor Zhang's prescription obviously detached from the national conditions, is divorced from the reality.

To achieve the ideal purpose of Professor Zhang, there must be an important premise- there should be sufficient rich people to bear the high tuition fees, at the same time, we should make sure that all the poor students can receive adequate subsidies. That is to say, China should have sufficient proportion of high-income groups. For example, in the face of high fares, more than 50 per cent of students' families can easily bear the high tuition, 20 to 30 percent of them can barely bear, and the remaining 20 to 30 percent of the students complete their studies through various subsidies. Only in a ratio like this is there a possibility of Pro.Zhang's "really good system".

However, the current level of our national income is far unable to bear a heavier burden of education. Statistics show that the poverty ratio in national key institutions exceeds 20% currently, and it is as high as 35 percent in study fields like agriculture, forestry, Normal and underdeveloped areas in West China Universities. What’s more, the "poor students" I am referring here, is basically the one who rely on relief, grants and other financial support to continue their studies and does not include other students who are facing economic difficulties. If the tuition increase five-fold, then what would the ratio be? 50%? 60% ? 70%? or even more? How many families are able to afford school fees?

Apparently, in the actual circumstances of national income (many of the income statistics are "averaged" by the wealthy) with such a large low-income groups in China, we can only increase the "fair distribution of the first" to solve the problem, that is to say, lower the tuition fee as much as possible, because only in this way can the majority of students' families bear the cost. If divorced from the reality of national income, just one-sided emphasis on use of economic means to solve the problem of poor students going to school might arouse the suspicion of the speaker's motivation - after all, the first beneficiary of the increasing tuition is the university, not others.