關心中國發展的年輕人應該注意此新聞。一家叫Shengda大學的學校因為向學生承諾畢業時會發給當地（河南）最好大學鄭州（音譯）大學的文憑，所以以高學費吸引了許多學生。(2500美元一年)但是在學生畢業時發現受騙了之後，引發了自六四以來最大的學生暴動，連鎮暴警察都被阻在校外。
造成此事件的基本因素是，中國大學生產量近年急劇增加七年來成長為五倍，今年大約四百一十萬人從大學畢業，其中可能有六成的畢業生難以找到適當的工作。因此，過去大學生的優越地位不在，使得追求名校更為必要。這可能是在圈地、環境破壞、積欠工資外，成為中國社會不安的來源。
For China, colleges are source of unrest
By Joseph Kahn The New York Times
THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2006
XINZHENG, China Shengda College in central China has a diverse curriculum, a foreign faculty to teach English and a manicured campus with weeping willows shading a recreational lake.
But many students paid the college’s rich tuition, at $2,500 a year one of the highest in China, primarily because Shengda promised that their diplomas would bear the name of its parent, Zhengzhou University, a more prestigious national-level school, and not mention Shengda at all.
So when the graduating class of 2006 got diplomas that read, ”Zhengzhou University Shengda Economic, Trade and Management College,” students ransacked classrooms and administrative offices, shattered car windows, scuffled with the police and staged one of the most prolonged student protests since the 1989 pro- democracy uprising.
The protest, still simmering, reflects the reality that China’s exploding population of college students must grapple with petty fraud, substandard instruction and an intensely competitive job market. Students, a traditional bellwether of political volatility, have become a fresh source of unrest in a society already riled by land grabs, unpaid wages and environmental abuse.
Once a ticket into the government or business elite, college has become an expensive gamble for millions of cash-strapped families who find that even the most prestigious degrees cannot guarantee success. By the government’s tally, China’s economy, though growing at about a 10 percent annual pace, will add about 1.6 million positions for people with college degrees this year. The country produced 4.1 million new college graduates.
Students at Shengda, a privately run college with 13,000 students outside Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, say they were assured upon admission, and repeatedly thereafter, that they would get graduation certificates that appear identical to those issued by Zhengzhou University, the top university in Henan. Most Shengda students did not perform nearly well enough on college entrance exams to enroll at Zhengzhou University itself. So Shengda’s promise persuaded students and their families to pay unusually steep tuition fees to gain an edge in the job market.
What many of them said they did not know is that the college had to begin using its own name on diplomas under a national regulation phased in beginning in 2003.
”We bought a Mercedes-Benz and they delivered a Santana,” said one angry graduate, Wang Guangying, referring to a low-priced Volkswagen model made in China. ”By that night, school officials had totally lost control.”
Beer bottles rained down from dormitory windows, leaving a carpet of broken glass on the school’s walkways. Television sets and washing machines followed, according to students who participated and photos of the post-riot scene. Groups of students marauded around campus, smashing cars, offices or any piece of property they felt belonged to someone in power. The front gate and a statue of the college’s founder were toppled.
The local police arrived to break up the protest, but they retreated after they were barraged by bottles and rocks. Anti-riot squads from Zhengzhou arrived around 3 a.m. Saturday morning, students said, after the violence had begun to subside.
The authorities sealed the campus and prevented most students from leaving. But marches and sit-ins in front of college headquarters continued through Wednesday, students said. Protesters shouted, ”Give back my Zhengzhou University diploma.” Others demanded a refund or discount on their tuition and a full apology from the college’s headmaster, Hou Heng.
They scored at least a partial victory. Hou said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he had resigned after being told to do so by his superiors at Zhengzhou University.
Hou acknowledged that some promotional literature from the school had ”failed to state clearly” that the school would amend its diplomas. He denied that Shengda had intentionally provided false information but said he had to take responsibility for the unrest.
”I’m fulfilling the wishes of the people above,” he said.
The problem is not unique. In 1998, the government encouraged a vast expansion in college-level education. Hundreds of new colleges were founded almost overnight to accommodate millions of new students thought to be needed as engineers, bankers, traders and marketing experts in the fast-growing economy.
Under the regulations, new colleges had to find ”mother schools” to supervise them. They used that link to their advantage. New colleges charged higher tuitions than the mother schools charged - Shengda’s fees are nearly five times those of state-run Zhengzhou University - because they gave students who did not test highly the chance to affiliate themselves with a top school.
Not all went as far as Shengda in issuing diplomas that carried the name of the mother school. But some did. And when the authorities put an end to this practice, students reacted harshly.
In Dalian, for example, about 3,000 students at the East Soft Information Institute, set up jointly by Northeast University and East Soft Group Company, attacked campus facilities in December, sending several teachers to the hospital. They rioted after they were told their diplomas would include the word ”online” to distinguish them from the regular graduation certificates issued by Northeast University.
At Shengda, a junior who asked to be called only Little Wang to avoid angering school officials said he came from an impoverished farming community in Henan. His parents devoted their savings and borrowed heavily from friends and relatives to pay Shengda’s tuition, which he said greatly exceeded his family’s annual income.
”I do not support violence, but the spirit of the students just collapsed,” he said by telephone from inside the sealed campus. ”The school must admit its error and refund our money.”
His anger stems partly from the fact that most fresh college graduates will not find work that comes close to meeting their expectations, meaning they will have to struggle to pay off the debts their relatives shouldered on their behalf.
In the short term, at least, college campuses are like kindling awaiting a spark. Even as the protests at Shengda went on, thousands of students at the Jiang’an campus of Sichuan University hurled bottles and barrels out their windows to protest a lack of electrical power at night.
Some students said they needed electricity at all hours to study for annual exams. But according to The Sun, a Hong Kong newspaper that first reported on the incident, the main grievance was that students needed power to watch live broadcasts of the World Cup.
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