With billions of yuan in financial aid allocated for college education, China's Ministry of Education has pledged to ensure every poor student can enter college, even if they do not have enough money for tuition fees.

In a notice issued Thursday, the ministry introduced various measures, such as additional student loans, more opportunities for part-time work and part-study, and a modified "Green Channel" policy.

The "Green Channel" policy, introduced in 2000, will be strengthened to enable poor students to register for college first and pay tuition later with the help of subsidized loans and reduced fees.

Last year, 585,000 students entered college through the "Green Channel", which accounted for 9.2 percent of all freshmen, the ministry said.

Apart from the "Green Channel" policy, students from disaster-hit areas will enjoy the same favorable policies as do those students who suffered the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, said Cui Bangyan, a senior official in charge of the national assistance system for college students with the Ministry of Education.

The number of impoverished students is set to increase this year because of frequent disasters such as severe droughts, earthquakes and floods, Cui said.

"We have asked schools to check up the application by every student and told the financial departments at various levels to look through each amount of money," Cui said.

The official said a hotline will be set up from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15 at the National Center for Student Assistance Administration (NCSAA) to provide consultations to students as well as accept complaints.

The ministry launched the hotline in 2005 before the autumn semester. The hotline aims to offer help to students who want to go to university but can not afford tuition fees.

Last year the hotline received 3,748 calls. Statistics show that 75.5 percent of the calls were made to consult about the funding policy, while 24.5 percent complained that colleges had failed to abide by rules to support students.

"Every problem reported must be dealt with within one week," said NCSAA director Ma Wenhua. The hotline team would report the problems to student assistance centers at the provincial level every five working days.

China now has 22.85 million college students, five million of whom come from poor families.

Generally, families have to pay at least 8,000 yuan (US$975.6) per year for their child's college education, which means farmers have to pay years of income.

(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2010)