High tuition fees were the main cause of the poverty of students' families, and 82.3 percent of the students' families became poor due to educational expense, a survey by the China Youth Development Foundation has found.

What was unexpected was that medium-income rural families with an annual income of 5,001 to 7,000 yuan needed education loans the most, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

The survey covered 16 high schools in 11 provinces and municipalities, including Beijing and Hebei Province.

The report found that the average expenditure on college education for one impoverished student was 6,780 yuan in one year, while the average annual income of the families of students surveyed was just 4,756 yuan. Two thirds of the families were unable to make ends meet.

According to the report, 12.7 percent of impoverished students would give up the chance to enter college because of an inability to pay tuition. Over 80 percent of them believed they would be able to enter at least a second-class undergraduate university; three out of five of them would not have enough money for the first year's tuition.

On the other hand, 1.78 million impoverished college students did apply for education loans, which accounted for 11.4 percent of the total number of Chinese college students. The number revealed the remarkable difference between the education loan supply and the actual demand.

Due to the differences in family income, the graph of the percentage of impoverished students who received education loans tended to shape olivary.

In 2005, nearly 30 percent of students with an annual family income below 5,000 yuan chose education loans to support their schooling; over 35 percent of those whose family incomes were between 5,001 and 7,000 yuan took the loan, the highest percentage, and just 19.7 per cent of students with an annual family income of over 7,001 yuan accepted the loan.

Experts said the reason why impoverished students with medium family incomes would tend to take education loans was that although they needed the funds to support their studies, they also were confident they could repay the loan.

Endowments from society members could be more effective for students from poorer families, and students with higher family earnings were more likely to make money by working part-time to subsidize their expenses.