China students "use tuition fees to buy stocks"

Students line up at a registration office to enrol for the general university entrance examination specialized test for art students in Weifang, east China's Shandong province February 6, 2006.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese university has banned 440 students from sitting their finals because they owe more than 14 million yuan ($2 million) in tuition fees, accusing them of using the money to invest, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

China has sought to bridge a yawning wealth gap between affluent cities and the impoverished countryside by waiving compulsory education fees for rural students, but a college education still remains out of reach for most.

But the Hebei University of Technology said some of the students who had not paid their dues were using the tuition money to make investments, the Beijing Times reported.

"We discovered that some of the students have put their tuition money into banks to accrue interest, or play the stock market, or do business," university spokesman Qu Zhenguang told the Beijing Times.

"It's obvious they are maliciously withholding tuition."

Some students at the college, in the province adjoining Beijing, pleaded poverty.

"My home is in the countryside, and our annual income is only a few thousand yuan," said Liu Qingsong, a third-year architecture student who has been banned from his finals because he was unable to pay 27,000 yuan ($3,700) in fees, the Beijing Times said.

In his spare time he was earning 200 to 300 yuan a month as a waiter.

According to school statistics, more than 2,000 students owed more than 50 million yuan in unpaid fees last October, but many had since paid.

China has advised students to shun investments amid a nationwide stock market craze in which prices have nearly quadrupled in the past 18 months.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

($1=7.244)

($1=7.244 Yuan)