Defining "poor"
Although the numbers have focused on students from rural families, some say the survey could be "off target," since China's rapid urbanization has lifted millions of farmers out of poverty while rising unemployment impoverishes many people now living in cities.
Linking poverty with rural areas misjudges the current demographic situation in China, said Liu Yuan, student administration director at Jiangsu-based Nanjing University.
"Times have changed since the 1950s-60s, when China had a low urbanization percentage," he said. "When we say impoverished families now, what we really mean are families with low income, not just rural families."
It has become quite normal for a rural family in a better-developed eastern province to have a higher income than an urban family in an underdeveloped inland region, Liu added.
In fact, both sides of the debate have noticed the definition problem.
Southern Weekend cited a survey of 34 universities by Xiamen University in 2004, which found that the percentage of students from urban worker families attending top universities had also dropped by 7.9 points.
"The poorer the family, the worse the school," concluded Lian Si, an intellectual who has studied China's "antizens" for years. Antizens are college graduates who earn meager salaries and live in small rented apartments and resemble tiny, laborious ants.
"It reflects an imbalance of resources, but it is not necessarily between rural areas and urban areas," Liu Bo said.
He said he is optimistic about the future of students who come from poorer families, as they tend to study harder than their urban counterparts.
"They cherish the opportunity to get into good universities, so they will be fine," he told China Youth Daily.
