Universities' debts rocketing as they expand, students stay away

BEIJING - Many of the nation's universities are struggling with mounting debts, according to a recent ranking of their financial health by ifeng.com.

"It will become a bit of a gamble when people choose which university they want to go to because they will have no idea whether their choice of university might disappear from the national college entrance exam enrollment list," said Luo Yi, a Beijing resident who graduated from Jilin University. "I was surprised to see my university at the top of the debtors' list for Chinese universities."

Jilin University in Changchun, the capital of Northeast China's Jilin province, has 3 billion yuan ($464 million) of debts that are largely down to an expensive expansion project in 2000, according to the ifeng.com ranking.