Financial aid helps needy students

China's financial aid system has offered more than 2 trillion yuan ($289 billion) to help millions of students over the past 10 years, according to the Ministry of Education.

"The country has built a student financial assistance system with Chinese characteristics, which is mainly government aid supplemented by school and social financial aid," Guo Peng, director of the department of finance of the Ministry of Education, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

He noted that the system had offered financial aid 1.3 billion times in the past decade, mainly to help students in need and reward those with excellent performance. Last year, the system, which has 28 programs funded by the central government, offered financial aid 150 million times, worth a total of more than 260 billion yuan.

"It has provided the world a Chinese solution for student financial support," he added.

In the past decade, more than 2 trillion yuan was provided to students with financial difficulties. Of that, 1.45 trillion yuan was provided by the government. The rest was funded by schools and society, as well as loans issued by financial institutions.

Annual funding doubled from 132 billion yuan in 2012 to 266 billion yuan in 2021. Financial assistance provided by the government increased from 102 billion yuan in 2012 to 201 billion yuan last year, of which the central financial investment increased to 123.8 billion yuan last year.

"Student financial assistance has played a key role in promoting education fairness," Guo said.

"Students with family financial difficulties no longer drop out of school due to economic problems. They do not need to worry about tuition fees and can fully enjoy fair educational opportunities. They also do not need to worry about living expenses at school and can devote themselves to study," he said.

Some schools not only give students money, but also carefully respect their privacy with dignity while offering financial aid.

Sun Zao, deputy Party secretary of Xi'an Jiaotong University, said some financial aid, including work and study grants and temporary hardship subsidies, can be applied for online and collected at the university, in order to protect students' privacy with dignity.