Institutions are named for fee scams
The mainland has named and shamed the first batch of eight schools for arbitrarily charging a total of 22.7 million yuan, as the central government struggles to streamline fees to make education accessible to more people.
The eight named - four tertiary institutions and four secondary schools - include the China Xian Academy of Fine Arts, which when recruiting last year accepted 932 students more than permitted and took 5.59 million yuan more than it should have.
This illegal income was derived from each student being overcharged by 6,000 yuan a year for the basic tuition fee for the drawing and design course, set at 9,000 yuan, a statement from the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top planning agency, said.
At South China University of Technology, 207 computer students were each overcharged 4,500 yuan for the four-year tuition fees on top of the 29,500-yuan fee. Another 209 e-commerce students were each charged an extra 6,000 yuan for their four-year fees. In total, the university illegally earned an extra 2.18 million yuan. Nanjing Audit University and Henan Normal University were also named.
The commission's statement said such arbitrary charging severely breached the mainland's education fee policy and was damaging to the interests of citizens.
Shenyang No2 Secondary School earned an additional 3.6 million yuan illegally, Taiyuan City No5 Secondary School 3.39 million yuan, Zhejiang Province Fenghua Secondary School illegally collected 3.45 million yuan and the Nanchang City No1 Secondary School collected 1.68 million yuan.
