After all, they pay almost 5,000 yuan (US$600) a year for tuition alone.

One of them, a sophomore at a university in Sichuan Province who gave his name only as Zhang, paid 400 yuan (US$48) for what he thought were "teaching materials" at the beginning of the semester. Those materials turned out to be a couple of books worth no more than 100 yuan (US$12).

Where did the rest of the money go? He couldn't get an answer from the school authorities.

He says that, in addition to 5,700 yuan (US$686) for tuition, they had to pay the university the 400 yuan for books with a store price of only 96 yuan (US$11.5).

He sent a letter to authorities to ask where the 304 yuan (US$36.6) went, but never got a reply.

So he turned to the local consumers association. That experience only frustrated him further. "They listened patiently until I finished my story, then told me it was a problem with the university and they could not help me since it had nothing to do with consumer affairs."

But, Zhang was not completely convinced. "I'm not exactly sure, but it seems to me that as long as I pay, I'm a consumer - of education," he told China Daily.

Universities started making students pay tuition five years ago, and many have to cough up that 5,000 yuan (US$600) or even more every year. But, does that alone make them consumers?

Li Xueping, who studies education theory at Zhejiang University, would give an affirmative "yes."

Even though there is no clear definition of a buyer-seller relation as applies to university, in Li's opinion, students should be entitled to the same rights as consumers. That includes knowing how their money is used. He goes even further and says that students should be able to choose the courses they're interested in, change majors at will, and ask the university to offer more practical and useful courses.

"In other countries like Germany, they have rankings done by graduates - just like we choose the most reliable brands in China," Li said, "so universities are totally aware that they are serving their students."

Obviously, this does not sound very likely at the present time, but, Li explains, students want to get a good job and the university should do everything it can to serve this purpose.

In any case, students are aware of their rights as consumers, says Wei Honglin, head of the Beijing Education Consulting and Complaint Center.

Since June, the center has dealt with over 170 cases of student-university disputes. These have mostly to do with tuition that universities charged self-supporting students.

Most of the disputes arose from the students' misunderstanding of universities' policies, Wei said, and most were resolved after they contacted the universities.

"Sure, it's cool for students to be aware of consumer rights," Wei says, "but actually, they're not real consumers as long as the universities are still funded by the government."

Wei said that there are government regulations that say the tuition paid by students should account for no more than 25 percent of the cost of their education. So it's hard to say that students are consumers in this sense.

Limited Power

Wei does say, however, that when it comes to dormitories and cafeterias on campus, students are consumers in every sense. They spend money directly, and some universities are even shifting a large number of services other than teaching over to companies to handle.

Nanjing University has an office in the Student Union that keeps an eye on these kinds of logistics handled by a company outside the university.

Wu Jie, founder and head of this Rights Department, who graduated last year, told China Daily how they came to set up the special department.

"Just about every student complains about the cafeterias on campus. This was the motivation behind setting this up in the Student Union."

She says that their responsibility "is to communicate between students and the university."

The efforts were recognized by university authorities so a communication channel was opened by using the university's online discussion board.

"Any student who is dissatisfied can put a complaint online. People who are in charge will reply to the complaint within several days' time," Wu explained.

She says that Nanjing University took the lead in establishing the department in 2001 and now similar Student Unions are all over the place.

At about the same time, students at Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing set up a university student consumer association.

But, some say they doubt that these rights associations can do much.

Huang Yumei, who succeeded Wu Jie as head of the Rights Department, says that conditions in dormitories and cafeterias have improved a lot thanks to their effort.

"When the university and independent logistic company outside the university have to compete, they seem to be more aware of improvement," Huang says.

However, when Huang was asked about the tuition and teaching materials dispute, she seemed surprised and said simply, "I never thought about something like that."

Then she thought for a while and said: "I don't think students are consumers and, as a student myself, I dare not argue with the university over some major problem."

Meanwhile, both Li and Wei admit that it's hard for Chinese students to act like consumers in their world for the time being.

But Li said he is confident that one day, sometime soon, China's universities will also recognize their roles as sellers if students have to pay for all their education.

"Their products are not only books or accommodation, but also knowledge, skills and the guarantee of a good job," he said.

(China Daily March 15, 2003)