In early spring, the barren campus of China Petroleum University is slipping into the dull period of school break. The cold winds have gone, the trees are bare, and gone too are most of the students, heading home for Lunar New Year, the Chinese equivalent of Christmas, the most important time of the year for family reunions.

But Tang Jiaguo chose to stay behind in Beijing, and for good reason.

The hard-up 20-year-old business management sophomore was waiting for part-time job offers, hoping to earn money to offset the cost of his education. Going home to spend time with his parents and his two sisters is something he just can't afford.

Tang's home is deep inside China's westernmost region of Xinjiang. To save on travel costs, he has to take slow trains, sitting on a hard-seat for three days and nights assuming traffic conditions are good, he said with a grin.

"I am OK with the travel, it's just that if I go home, I will lose the opportunity to earn some money," Tang said, as he walked out of the library, wearing a dark-green overcoat donated by college authorities.

Tang believes in an old proverb which says that if a couple (family) is impoverished, almost everything in the household is sad. "I can go home, but there are so many worries. The family is deep in debt to pay for my sisters' education, and I have my own living expenses in the next semester to worry about," he said.

Missing out on family time

According to China Foundation of Poverty Alleviation, there are around 7,000 poor students in Beijing's 14 universities who cannot make it home for Lunar New Year. Some are deterred by the cost of travel, while many others have to work in the vacation, to support themselves and, sometimes, their families.

The foundation recently polled 2,790 poor college students who chose to stay in Beijing and found that 77 percent of the respondents "deeply missed the family and would love to go home for a family reunion."

"Most of my classmates can be with their families and talk to their friends at home, but I am stuck alone in Beijing. It's really depressing," said Hei Zhilin, entered China Petroleum University last summer from a village in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in west China.

The robust 22-year-old Muslim student said he had to stay to work. His family in Ningxia - two parents and three younger sisters - relies on 0.46 hectares of corn fields, which gives them an annual income of less than 3,000 yuan (US$380).

Hei's tuition fee is around 5,000 yuan a year, excluding the spending on food and boarding. Though he already got loans to cover the majority of the cost, Hei said he should earn enough money to ensure he will ask no more financial support from the family in the next three years.

The survey also found that 35 percent of the polled students couldn't afford a ticket home. And around 70 percent said they would seek part-time jobs.

A month in advance of Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 18 this year, railway tickets are already a hard-to-get item as millions of college students and migrant workers prepare to hit the road. Airline companies have started canceling discounts, too.

While some poor students long for an unattainable Lunar New Year family reunion, for many urban kids, the holiday is just another time to be spoiled.

According to tradition, kids are supposed to be attired head to foot in new clothes, eat magnificent meals and receive "red envelopes" containing money from the elderly. It is not uncommon for kids from well-to-do urban families to receive thousands of yuan of "red envelope" money.

In the survey, most of the respondents say their monthly expenses are between 200-300 yuan. But Tang said in his university there are many rich students whose monthly expenses reach into the thousands, even though the school is located on the outskirts of Beijing, a 2-hour drive from downtown.

China's yawning wealth gap has started to ooze into school life. For those who come from the countryside and mix with rich urban classmates it can be quite a very tough wake-up call, said Zhuang Zenan, a postgraduate student of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, who comes from the booming coastal city of Xiamen.

"It is really sad to know classmates around you are too poor to go home for an important time like Lunar New Year," he said, adding that he was familiar with the situation in his undergraduate class.

"The fact that they can't live like most people around is a big problem in China's schools. The concept of equality is on the shaky ground," he said.

Trying to "work" problems out

After conducting the survey, the poverty-relief agency decided to offer a helping hand. Through its fund-raising campaigns, 584 poor college students have each received 500 yuan as home travel fees by Jan. 21, said Huan Jing, a staff member with the foundation.

He said the foundation also introduce 120 poor students to prospective employers who need helping hands during the holiday season.

But there are still 450 others who need help, Huan said, mentioning the foundation's "New Great Wall" project, which aimed at helping around 1,000 poor students who could not get home for Lunar New Year.

"We would like to help more, but we can't cope with more than 1,000," said Ling Yun, a project coordinator. "When we heard a girl saying her new year wish is to see her mother, hear her mom's voice, and eat her cooking, we were very moved and are determined to carry on with the helping project in spite of all the difficulties."

Ling said when two years ago they initiated a similar program, they gave impoverished students money for travel, but recently they have shifted their focus to helping students find part-time jobs, so that they can stand on their own two feet.

Unlike the West, part-time college jobs are a relatively new concept in China. Previously, the state paid nearly all tuition for every student that won entrance to university through cut-throat exam competition. As the state contribution to overall tuition costs declined from the mid-1990s, parents had to assume more financial responsibility.

With college tuition fees now at around 4,000 - 8,000 yuan a year, rural families have begun to crack under the strain. The average income of a Chinese farmer was 3,225 yuan a year in 2005, according to a research report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Tang stopped asking his family for money in his first year at college. But he said part-time job opportunities are scarce and poorly paid.

For the winter break last year, he worked at a Sinopec gas station at the eastern outskirts of Beijing, where he spent the Lunar New Year Eve with his temporary colleagues.

"They treated us nicely, just like in a family. But I believe every one of the poor college students would have chosen to go home for Lunar New Year, if conditions allow," Tang said, also acknowledging that the combination of a tight course schedule and scarcity of part-time offers throughout school terms presses poor students to swap family reunion at vacations for chances to earn money.

He urged schools to collaborate with companies on a wider scale, and provided impoverished students more part-time opportunities, and in good quality.

In China's labor market, employers seldom sign contracts with student part-timers, who often have to accept tough work requirements and low pay in exchange for first-hand work and social experience. And without binding contracts, students are at the mercy of their employers, said Cui Yingchun, a teacher in charge of aiding impoverished students in Beijing Jiaotong University.

"Compared with students from cities, those from the countryside are much more vulnerable," Cui said, adding that rural students are more likely to take unfavorable deals as they need money badly.

The worry is shared by Huan, saying to look for the right employers is the most difficult part of the project, and that is why only 120 students are introduced to the part-times so far. He called for companies, especially the big and famed ones, to help out, by admitting more student interns, and on more regular basis.

Even though many impoverished college students miss out on family gatherings, even though they suffer disappointment and encounter dishonesty in their part-time jobs, they are nevertheless seen as their family's best chance to escape the poverty trap, education experts say.

Hei was the first person to enter university from his home village in Ningxia. He said most of his high school classmates who failed the college entrance exam were preparing to take the exam again this year.

The reason is simple, Hei said. Before entering university I once worked at a construction site in Inner Mongolia, making less than 40 yuan a day for 12 hours of outdoor toil, but now as a part-time tutor I earn 30 yuan per hour teaching middle school math.

"I want my parents to live an easier and better life," he said.

"Life has toughened me up, and I believe I can make a difference," said Tang, who wants to return to Xinjiang after graduation and find a job in an oil company.

"There is nothing wrong with being born poor, but wanting to stay poor is stupid, especially for young people."

(Xinhua News Agency February 14, 2007)