University looks at lunch costs to identify the poor
Print Edition
A UNIVERSITY in central China’s Hubei Province is watching what its students spend on lunch in order to weed out those falsely claiming financial hardship.
Students at Chinese universities generally use their student cards to pay for meals on campus, making spending data easy to track.
“If a student is found not to qualify as poor, he/she will be taken off the list and lose their state grants,” said Li Jing, deputy director of Huazhong Agriculture University’s student grant management center in Wuhan.
Li said lunch money, though not a decisive factor, will be considered in the daily management of student grants.
“If you spend more than 6.2 yuan (US$1) each meal, it is very likely you will lose your grant,” said one student on the university’s online forum, though the university said that estimate was inaccurate.
Poor students receive 2,000 to 4,000 yuan in state grants a year and are also favored for scholarships and awards.
Last year, 4,668 students, about a quarter of the university’s total, received grants.
“Each year, the students are asked to submit an application form, followed by an appraisal by his or her instructor and the college,” Li said
“We found many students provide false information to gain grants. On the other hand, some students from poor families refuse to fill out the application and disclose they are living in poverty. By doing so, their self-respect may be damaged,” said Li.
“That has made it difficult for the university to tell who is really poor. We try to improve accuracy and do a lot of cross-checking to discern false information,” he said.
Before implementing the lunch money rule, school authorities polled 89 freshmen on the grant list and found that they all spent less than the average on meals.
School staff who conducted the research said lunch spending had a strong correlation with students’ financial reality.
This month, 30 students at the university designated as “poor” will be investigated after it was found that their lunch and dinner spending ranked among the top 10 percent of students.
Mixed response
“The college will carry out a detailed investigation and collect comprehensive information. If these students are not really poor, they will be taken off the list and lose their grants,” said Jin Shuai, a student counselor.
The rule has met a mixed response, with many people saying it infringes on the privacy of students and is disrespectful to the basic rights of the poor among them.
“What if I had a big stomach and regularly eat a lot? What if I’m ill and need good food for nutrition?” asked one student, who refused to be named.
“If those fake poor students go binge drinking and eating outside the campus and spend little at campus canteens, the rules will have no use at all,” another said.
Other students said they understood why the university needed to use the information. “University students come from all around the country, and it is hard to know their real conditions,” another student surnamed Xu said.
“The university should improve communication and transparency if they want to collect certain data,” said Fan Xianzuo, an educational science scholar at Central China Normal University, also in Wuhan.
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