Research On Education Cost-Benefit Of Poor Students Of University

The view that education is useless is spreading because of recession and bad situation of employment now. This view has influenced the college students deeply, as well as high school students, middle school students, pupils and their parents, especially those poor students who are more than 25% of enrolled college students. Then it not only dampens parents'enthusiasm for educational investment, but also deflates students'enthusiasm for leaning. In the long run, it is surely harmful to development of our country's higher education.In this paper, a cost-benefit method is used to analyze the cost and benefit of completing high education of poor students. The personal direct cost data of poor students is from a questionnaire, which includes the expenditures of enrolled poor students'learning and life, then deduct scholarship and all kinds of subsidies. Those poor students are students of freshman, sophomore and junior of a comprehensive university in Hunan province. The personal indirect cost (opportunity cost) is measured by a median of wage of a high school graduates (Shanghai) in 2007. The social cost is educational expenditure per student. The personal direct profit is measured by present value of estimated life income of poor students after their graduation. The author uses two discount rates to calculate the present value respectively, they are 2.52% and 3.69%. The indirect profit includes lower risk of losing job, higher profit, and better working environment and so on. The social direct benefit is measured by economic contribution rate of higher education, and the indirect benefit includes reducing social poverty, promoting social fairness and so on. By comparison and analysis the benefit and cost between the poor students and non-poor students, the conclusion shows that the poor students can gain not only same profit as non-poor students but also bring great social benefits after education. The total income is much more than the total cost. It is a typical external economy.Finally, some advices are put forward to help the poor students. Such as reforming the educational pattern of higher education, ensuring enough authorized education fund, regulating the amount of tuition and controlling the increase of tuition, consolidating the social security, perfecting support system for poor students, formulating reasonable tax preference measures, putting the education development into performance appraisal system of government officer and so on to ensure every poor students to receive and finish their higher education.