On The Mechanism Of Coercive Payment Of Students' Fee In China

As the reform on the higher education system deepens and the enrollment in higher education system increases, the tuition has become an important source income of the budget in the colleges and universities. But in the same time, many colleges and universities have some difficulty collecting the tuition from students and the tuition default rate has gone up in recent years. Tuition default from university students has become a common problem in many colleges and universities. The growth of tuition default cases has directly impacted the income and budget planning in colleges which would further affect the sustainable development. limit the stable growth of colleges, limit t the training of qualified and talented students and possibly affect the daily operation of the college. To establish a sound tuition collection mechanism from students has become a urgent problem that needs to be addressed. Therefore, this article studies the tuition collection mechanism from college students and makes important theoretical and practical contributions to this area.Tuition is mainly used to cover the operating expenses of colleges and universities. Its rate has been set appropriately such that student and his family is responsible for the expense related to the student's part. However, the deployment of the tuition system not only brings vitality to the education reform in college and injects new energy into the development of higher education system but also creates chances for the tuition default. Tuition collection system is an integral part of all tuition-related administration departments in the college and helps these departments function normally. With a good tuition collection system, it is easy to realize the goal of collecting the tuition even though the external conditions have changed substantially because it can respond rapidly to any emergent situation and adjust accord- ingly. Higher education is not obligatory education and the tuition collection system will affect many financially difficult students, the stability of campus, the realization of the higher education goal and has important implications to the fair education system , the overall development of a person and the establishment of a harmonic society. The establishment of a tuition collection system is an important part of creating the socialist and harmonic society in our campus and embodies the ideals of fair education, humanism, scientific growth. To establish a sound tuition collection system needs 3 theoretical bases including the cost sharing theory, educational quasi-public product theory and human capital theory. The higher education cost sharing theory assumes that higher education cost would be completely or mostly covered by the government or the taxpayers and only partial of the cost should be paid by the student and his family. They pay the tuition to cover partial teaching cost or defray certain reasonable amount of money to cover the student lodging and food that are provided by government in low cost. The higher education cost sharing theory is formed under the backdrop of global higher education financial crisis. The educational quasi-public product theory argues that higher education is a quasi-public product that falls between the area of a public product and the area of a private one. To consume such a product, consumer has to pay a certain price in order to enjoy it rather than occupy it solely or enjoy it for free with the rest of the society. Public products are provided through the tax system and private products are offered by the price payment. For the quasi-public product, a certain fee is required. Since the higher education is a quasi-public product between the public product and the private one, then the educational cost should be shared by the government and the private persons and the personal cost share is the tuition. It is the quasi-public product property that determines that the higher education should have a fee system. The human capital theory argues that education is not only a consumption but also an investment act. The quantity and quality of higher education investment directly affects the human capital's value and further affects the economy growth and society evolution. In addition, the human capital gain is higher than the property investment gain. Such an investment can improve the productivity of other factors in the economy, increase the accumulation of investment and has the trait of gradual growth. Education investment is the investment on tuition.Defaulted tuition and fees payment by college students are very common in almost every university in our country. In recent years, the situation has got worse and worse which can be attributed to several factors looking from a thorough perspective: society, school and students themselves. Relatively high tuition cost, insufficient government subsidy all contribute to most student tuition payment default cases. The imperfect student loan system is also an important factor that contributes to the tuition collection difficulty. AS the universities increase their enrollment in recent years, more college graduates are in the job market each year which causes the difficult job market which in turn causes the difficult situation in tuition collection. The lack of attention paid to financially difficult students, too lenient penalty to students who intentionally default their payments, unclear school policies, imperfect school administration and payment management system further worsen the situation. Uneven family income, the inconsistent growth rate between family income growth and tuition increase, the loss of credibility in students themselves are also the main reasons for the students to default their tuition and fees.Based on the comparisons and lessons from typical American and British university tuition collection examples, we can come to the following conclusions:The compensation from the society for the higher education expense should be increased. According to the compensation principle that who benefits should pay, the society should become the main subject for compensating the higher education expense.Borrowing the administration lessons from USA, the colleges and universities should carry out an thorough reform on the teaching system implements a real credit registration tuition system and embodies the fair education principle.The simple and rigid tuition loan policy should be adjusted to allow more flexible and versatile ways of getting the loan and paying back the loan. In supporting the financially difficult students, the successful lessons from American and British universities can be very meaningful and applicable to our situation.To establish the sound tuition collection system in our colleges and universities, several criteria should be metIn the macro aspect, the government should set appropriate tuition rate, increase the operation budget for higher education,develop the administration with the government investment as the main part and attract other sources of managing school, gradually establish a system consists of government, society and school that share the higher education system cost together, strengthen the national tuition loan, make the tuition loan as the primary way for student to borrow money to go to college, mandate the tuition loan as the main way to support financially difficult students, improve the regulations and policies regarding the tuition administration, stipulate into law legal punishments for the students who intentionally default tuition payment and allows the colleges to handle the tuition default with legal guidance.In the micro aspect, the school should design effective, reasonable and legal regulations regarding the tuition collection. The school should create an award and punishment system for tuition payment and default acts and the policy regarding tuition installment and waiver should be regularized. A practical and thorough help system should be established to assist the financially difficult students on campus. The tuition collection administration system should be established in such a way that it will energize the entire administration personnel to enforce the tuition collection. In the tuition collection process, each department needs to identify its own tasks and collaborate with other departments to enforce the tuition collection mechanism. The school should educate the students about the importance of credibility and interleave the tuition collection work with the credibility education on students in order to establish a honest and faithful environment.