On The Current Policies Helping The Needy And The Sufferings In Chinese Colleges:a Research From The Perspective Of Social Rights

Financial aids for college students aim to address the problem of needy and suffering students and to ensure the rights to higher education of needy and suffering students. As a kind of social policy, financial aids for college students are an active state practice to ensure the social rights of the needy and the suffering students. Financial aids for college students have been valued since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. The policies that help the needy and the sufferings have gone through4stages:Tuition Waiver plus People’s Grant, the co-existence of People’s Grant and People’s Scholarship, the co-existence of scholarship and student loans and diversified mixed aids. Different stages of aiding policies are the results of their distinctive historical backgrounds and socio-economic productions.The establishment of tuition system of Chinese higher education, and the rise of tuition fees were caused by external factors such as the cost-sharing theories of higher education, the mass higher education theories and the semi-public product nature of higher education, as well as internal factors such as the great economic benefits of higher education. At the same time, the vulnerable social groups faced economic difficulties. The coincidence of the above2factors resulted in the emergence of needy and suffering college students. The protrusion of the problem of needy and suffering college students was in its essence the result of social class division and differentiation of citizens’rights in the transition period.The right to education is a social right of citizens. Citizens have the social right to share the fruits of social development and lawfully enjoy basic living conditions. When these basic living conditions are not provided, citizens have the right to demand the state to provide them. Considering the nature of social rights of citizens, the right to education is surely a right that should be enjoyed by all citizens and that should be ensured by the government. For the sake of addressing the problem of needy and suffering college students, so that all needy and suffering students will be able to afford college educations, in May,2007, the State Council issued "Opinion of Establishing and Improving Financial Aid Policy Systems for Needy and Suffering Students in Regular Undergraduate Colleges, Higher Vocational Schools and Secondary Vocational Schools," which marked the establishment of a new financial aid policy system in China.The current college policies helping the needy and the sufferings include7measures, they are a "Green Channel", identification of needy and suffering students, scholarships, state grants, state student loans, work-study programs, tuition relief and waiver, subsidies for the needy and sufferings and tuition compensations. The purpose of these measures is an active state practice to address the problem of needy and suffering college students and the schooling problem of needy and suffering college students as well as to ensure the rights to higher education of needy and suffering students. The content of these measures is a top-level design based on state responsibility, a rectification of social inequality caused by institutional dilemma and a systematic arrangement of "reverse discrimination." The outcome of these measures is that it fulfilled the original intention of letting all needy and suffering students be able to afford college educations and solved the "bottom of survival" problems of needy and suffering college students. This policy embodied from its birth the legitimate social rights of needy and suffering students, the responsibility of the state and the government for needy and suffering college students and the nature of state practice of the state ensuring the social rights of needy and suffering college students, namely the rights to education.The current college policies helping the needy and the sufferings have some problems of their own. In recent years, as the effort, projects and amounts of aids increase, the received utility of needy and suffering students decrease while the total utility of financial aid continues to increase. The current policies are displaying a diminishing of marginal utility. The current policies, as a state systematic arrangement, are subject to the limitations of their life circles, falling of adaptive efficiency, weakening of resource allocation functions and the emergence of democratic systematic defections. The current policies, as the ensuring of citizen’s social rights by the state power, are suffering from excessive power standard and unbalanced rights and obligations."Foreign stones may be used to polish domestic jades." In the development of higher education, governments of different countries of the world have faced problems concerning financial aids for college students. Developed countries have established college student financial aid systems that are close to perfect. Examples include the "tuition waiver plus grants" mode of the UK, the "diversified mixed aid" mode of the US, the "tuition fee plus student loan" mode of Japan as well as various policies of Asia-Pacific countries that have aroused international attentions because of their rapid economic growth. Overseas college student financial aid modes demonstrate reasonable philosophies, efficiency of system and the dominance of the government. They serve as good examples for the development and improvement of the current Chinese college policies helping the needy and the sufferings.The current college policies helping the needy and the sufferings should establish a more reasonable philosophy, balance fairness and efficiency, balance rights and obligations and balance rights and power. The current college policies helping the needy and the sufferings needs optimized design. The establishment of conditional aid mechanism, efficient resource allocation mechanism, rights and obligations balancing mechanism, ability development mechanism for the needy and the suffering and the humanistic care mechanism along with aids will realize the maximized efficiency and utility. Continuously improving college policies helping the needy and the sufferings with maximized efficiency and utility will more effectively help the needy and the suffering students financially, they will significantly help the needy and the suffering students lift themselves out of poverty and effectively help the state ensure the social rights of the needy and the suffering students.