In the newest investment list released late last month by the State Council, the development of college towns is ranked as a restrictive project with investment decisions requiring approval from the State Council.

Why? Aren't college towns educational areas that benefit the public and therefore good and necessary to encourage?

They might be, as long as they are developed reasonably, fairly, transparently and gradually.

But now it is apparent that most -- if not all -- of China's 54 college towns nationwide are a bit more than an educational "leap forward."

They offer real estate developers a way to make elevated profits and local government officials to pursue political achievements.

It is true that after years of expanded enrollment of new students, most universities in China have very tight campuses, dormitories and classrooms.

China began admitting more students into colleges in 1999. The number of college students rose from 1.64 million in 1999 to 3.82 million in 2002. China had three times more new public college students last year when compared to 1999.

But does that mean a lot of college towns are urgently needed?

The answer is no.

To see a picture of the Oriental University City in Hebei Province's Langfang, which is the only partially finished and operating college town in China, one finds more than half of the finished buildings are empty. Some colleges, such as a local university of Beijing's Haidian District, have decided to withdraw from their college town.

Economically, building infrastructure, properties, and teaching and service facilities amounts to a huge investment for college town developers. To gain their investment costs back, developers have to charge exorbitant amounts from universities that buy or rent properties in the college towns. Most of China's universities are publicly owned and rely on government allotments.

Commonly speaking, government allotments are far from enough. Therefore, universities located in college towns have to charge high tuitions from students, which is either illegal or scares away new students who choose not to attend these universities.

Some colleges in the Oriental University City -- located in a relatively low-consumption area in North China's Hebei Province -- charge each student more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,210) per year, much higher than that of prestigious colleges like Tsinghua and Peking universities in Beijing.

A striking phenomenon is that college towns in China are built bigger and bigger, but colleges willing to enter them have not grown correspondingly.

Guangzhou College Town, for example, encompasses 17 square kilometres in Xiaoguwei, a suburban part of the city. The areas are two times bigger than all universities currently in Guangzhou. In Zhengzhou, capital city of Central China's Henan Province that does not have many universities, two big college towns -- with only five universities agreeing to move into each of them -- are being constructed.

The massive expansion of college towns swallows huge amounts of arable land, depriving many farmers of jobs. This is despite many colleges offering poor educational services.

Most college teachers won't even live in the suburban college towns. Many universities put their junior students in their college town campuses while leaving senior students at their original campuses. In order to make high profits, college town developers introduce a series of high consumption facilities, luring naive students to spend their money. The Oriental University City has even built a huge golf course, which is far beyond the abilities of average Chinese to afford.

Jiang Guohua, a professor with Beijing-based Central Institute of Education, said: "By dividing teachers and students, separating junior and senior students, and introducing high-end consumption facilities, the current model of college towns has utterly destroyed university cultures.

Despite their failure to promote education, college towns are still pursued zealously in China.

Local government officials want to show their support to education through college town construction. Developing education is a major stake to promote them.

The strongest driving force is real estate developers who have opportunities to obtain large amounts of land for incredibly low prices through developing college towns. Many of those developers use the low-cost land to build commercial projects -- such as hotels, apartments and office buildings -- for huge profits.

In Guangzhou College Town, the government-backed developer is forcing original residents of Xiaoguwei Island -- including farmers and a group of artists who built their villas on the island -- to move so that they can build service facilities. The compensation price to home owners is extremely low -- about 2,000 yuan (US$242) per square metre for the properties while nearby commercial properties are sold at 10,000 yuan (US$1,210) per square metre. Meanwhile, those service properties -- hotel, super market and recreation facilities -- are expected to bring huge profits to developers.

Now do we still need college towns?

We need them, but such college towns are a product of the natural and gradual development of universities themselves instead of a creation of local governments and real estate developers. If developed by universities, college towns are a normal extension of their campus.

Economically, future college towns should result from university's years' saving, government funding and social sponsorship in which real estate developers should not play major roles. Socially, such college towns should not become arable land snatchers. All the land and transactions involved in college town construction should be done fairly and transparently.

Only by doing this, can college towns develop into a place to cultivate students' intellectual development and culture, as well as moral and social responsibilities instead of merely motivating the pursuit of high consumption and profits.

(China Daily August 9, 2004)