BEIJING – My first meal at Tsinghua came from the Foreign Students
Eatery, where the dozen or so cafeteria workers are familiar enough
with Chinese nubs and their frantic pointing. I wordlessly selected a
chicken and cucumber dish, a side of rice and a plate of dumplings.
With a soda, the total came to 9.5 RMB, or a little over a dollar. I
took out my one-time 10 RMB dining card and swiped in a counter top
machine. It didn't like the card. Rather than deducting the amount it
started beeping. I tried it three more times to the same effect. The
fuyuan at the cashier knew the meaning of the beep. "Your card doesn't
have enough money," she said, and told me to take another renminbi out
of my wallet.
Weeks later I knew enough Chinese to decipher a sign posted on the
counter near the card reader. "Here we sell 10 RMB dining cards. Each
one is 10 RMB (there is a one renminbi service fee on each card,
making the balance 9 RMB) and can they can be bought here." What I
didn't know when I arrived was that at Tsinghua, everything comes with
a fee.
When I wanted to leave on my Worker's Holiday trip a day early, the
Foreign Students Office said it would be happy to reschedule my
listening midterm – for a 50 RMB fee. The library charges 10 RMB for a
card, then 100 RMB to take out books. The worst offender is Dining
Services, who charge a 20 RMB fee on a reusable dining card, a 10 RMB
fee to recharge it, a 30 RMB deposit and take 10 percent of anything
on the card as a general "service fee."
There are fees to make a photocopy, fees to wash clothes, fees to
organize an activity and fees to register your living location. An
unlucky person – or one disposed to doing things that incur a fee –
might spend more than a month's tuition just on fees while studying
here.
As much as I hate having to dig into my wallet every 10 minutes, these
fees do have a point. High education is China offered à la carte,
which means that every time a student uses a service at the
university, he pays for it. Want to play tennis or use the
university's dilapidated exercise bikes? Fine, but it'll be 3 RMB for
each visit.
American universities, especially private ones, add services as a way
to compensate for ballooning tuition, room and board fees. Parents
send $40,000 to $50,000 to an academic institution each year with the
idea that this is all-inclusive, that this small fortune will cover
their son or daughter's eating, drinking, academic, physical and
mental needs for the next 10 months. Send them the money for four
years, and then show up on a sunny May afternoon to watch your new
graduate march across the stage.
Many students wind up getting a raw deal. Someone who works off-campus
full time, doesn't join university activities and peruses a course of
study with few tangible equipment costs (such as English) winds up
with a poor return on the original investment. Perhaps American
universities should look East for inspiration, and allow students to
choose what they want.
