I always remember that when I went to Changsha in September 1997 to study at a secondary school, my tuition fee was 3,800 yuan a year.
The second and third academic years are 2,800 yuan a year.
I remember so clearly, because I was made to death by the tuition fee, the first year my family was smashed pot and sold iron to get together 3,800 yuan, the second year the two children in the family studied in Changsha, the tuition fee added up to more than 6,000, the family had no money, my father wrote a note to me, let me take a bus from Shaoyang East District, to Xinshao County to find my aunt-in-law to borrow money.
I still remember that in the summer of 1998, my eldest aunt was working in the fields on the outskirts of the county, looking at the note of borrowing tuition, he thought about it for a while with a hoe, and without much nonsense, he took me back to his home that was not very rich, borrowed 1,500 yuan from me, and scraped together my mother's hard-earned money in Tangxia, Dongguan, before going to school.
I didn't pay it back until ten years later.
In the third school year, I took a note and went to my uncle to borrow some money, and then scraped together my mother's hard-earned money in Tangxia, Dongguan, which can be regarded as finishing this secondary school.
In the winter of 1999, in the name of internship, I also went to Tangxia to work, when I was 17 years old, I lived in a dark dormitory for 12 people, and received more than 400 yuan in the first month's salary.
I was able to finish my secondary school in such a poor situation, and that was really thankful, because I saw with my own eyes that a male classmate in the second class of electric power had excellent character and learning, because his family really had no money for him, he was halfway through the second grade, and he was taken back by his parents while crying on the green road of the school.
He was only 16 years old that year, his grades in reading were very good, he was handsome, and he should have had a very good life, but because of the damn tuition, he only had a junior high school degree in this life, and he didn't know how bumpy his life was.
In 1997, the salary of ordinary people was generally 200-500 yuan, my father was a contractor, and he was a big man on the construction site 20 yuan a day, but don't want to earn 600 yuan a month, because the wind and rain will not start work, everyone will nest together to play cards, this kind of heavy labor, a month is about 450-500 yuan.
Even if the construction site is 500 yuan a month, my tuition fee of 3,800 yuan that year is not counting the living expenses, which is 7.6 times the monthly income of the construction site giant.
In 2024, the construction site will be a big man with heavy physical strength or some skills, with a daily salary of 350 yuan for bricklayers and 400 yuan a day for carpenters, and the monthly income will be about seven or eight thousand. (Less than 12 months in a year)
In 2024, in addition to the high fees of art universities, the general tuition fees are around 4,500-6,500 yuan.
When I inquired about college tuition last year, one of the students said that he was a little embarrassed that the fees were so low that they were so low.
The post-90s and post-00s envy the post-70s and post-80s who have eaten the dividends of the times, in fact, we are also quite envious that you can finish college well, at least you don't have to worry about tuition.
The college tuition in 2024 is only about 70% of the monthly income of a big man on a construction site, and no one will be taken home from the boulevard by his parents crying because he can't pay the tuition.
Everyone has a book to read, it is not a matter of course, foreign universities are not cheap, American universities have a tuition fee of 4-80,000 US dollars a year, French public 2000-4000 euros a year, private 6000-15000 euros a year, and the UK is generally 2.5-65,000 pounds a year.
China itself couldn't afford to provide for so many students before, and it was only when the finances came up that it could afford it, and these years are really the golden time for scholars, as long as you are willing to read, it is not much of a problem to study for a long time.
In 1997, China only admitted 1 million college students, and in 2023, China will admit 11 million college students, and the burden is ten times heavier, why is the tuition so much cheaper?
In 2022, the total national investment in education will be 6.13 trillion yuan, 3.92 trillion yuan will be spent on education, infrastructure and education surcharges, and 571.5 billion yuan will be spent on education by the central government, accounting for about 4% of the annual GDP.
In 2022, the per capita public pre-funded education funding for kindergartens nationwide will be 10,198 yuan, primary schools will be 12,791 yuan, junior high schools will be 18,152 yuan, high schools will be 19,117 yuan, secondary vocational schools will be 17,461 yuan, and universities will be 22,205 yuan.
To put it bluntly, the tuition fees that everyone usually pays are not enough for the cost, and China's education is cheap and subsidized by the government.
However, the Chinese government has spent so much money on education subsidies over the years, so that so many people can receive higher education, and if it wants to change to Japan, it is necessary to come to a touching scene of "the emperor goes on a hunger strike to run education, and all the reparations from the Qing Dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War are invested in education", which can make Chinese literati cry for three days.
China often spends a lot of money on public investment, but it is a little stricter than that of capitalist countries, which is a characteristic of socialist countries and is more special among other countries in the world.
Education is only a small part of this public investment, but it also includes power generation, public security, drinking water, high-speed rail, highways, telecommunication networks, urban transportation, water conservancy facilities, and so on.
Education alone is so expensive, but China's law and order are good, water and electricity bills are not expensive, the Internet is everywhere, highways are everywhere, high-speed railways are all over the country, and water conservancy facilities are perfect, which shows how much public investment is borne every year.
You just ask your girlfriend out for a meal, and behind the high-quality public services, the cost is terrifyingly higher, and it is a huge national political and financial support.
Many people have traveled to Europe and the United States to calculate the quality of life of Chinese, about the level of countries with per capita GDP of 2-25,000 US dollars, and I myself have said in many articles that the level of 7,000 yuan salary in Chengdu, as long as there is no mortgage, is about equal to the living standard of other cities in the United Kingdom except London.
All of this is based on the dual basis of cheap industrial goods and cheap and high-quality public services in the industrial countries.
Cheap reading, inexpensive transportation, inexpensive water and electricity, cheap household appliances, and cheap cars constitute the material advantages of ordinary Chinese over other countries.
However, since the epidemic in 2020, the global inflation has broken out, overseas consumer countries have declined, the total amount of foreign trade is increasing but there are fewer people sharing profits, and China, a producer country, has encountered a decline in real estate and a decrease in domestic demand, but has entered a period of great deflation.
The inability to sell houses has led to a tightening of local finances, the delay in the introduction of property taxes, and the lack of money in the local government, so they can only reduce the expenditure on public goods.
Therefore, starting from 2024, China will continue to see prices for high-speed rail, electricity prices, natural gas, buses and subways, etc., and local cultural and tourism bureaus will also change their tricks to attract tourists, such as Malatangla, Erbinla, Wangpola, and Hanfu, in order to increase the cash flow income of the local government.
There is not only an objective portrayal of "falling housing prices and rising everything (excluding wages)", but also the unavoidable path dependence to fight deflation.
Among the four conventional expenses of clothing, food, housing and transportation, what can be directly started to open up sources and reduce expenditure is the transportation and housing in the large infrastructure, including high-speed rail, high-speed, bus, subway, violations, aviation, etc., and the housing aspect is to relax land sales, allow individuals to build houses independently or jointly, and find some fragmented land financial compensation.
More and more natural resources across the country will be open to the public for contract leasing.
Housing and transportation are directly regulated through administrative means, and it is estimated that clothing and food will be indirectly affected, and considering the problem of survival, the prices of food and clothing will rise slightly, but not sharply.
All problems are fiscal problems, and all bailout plans are ultimately for the sake of finance.
At present, China is still in the early stage of public service price increases, and it is very likely that prices will continue to rise as the entire chain transitions to marketization.
At the same time, it will force enterprises to raise the wage level (which will happen) to hedge the survival pressure of employees when they face the price increase of basic living factors.
Since China has been in deflation for too long and is eager to break out of it, we have also said in advance that we will raise prices to raise inflation.
The macro adjustment was immediate, with the CPI falling by 1% in March 2024 and rising by 0.1% in April, "among the non-food products, the prices of air tickets, transportation, hotel accommodation, and tourism all turned from falling to rising, with increases of 15.3%, 9%, 4%, and 2.7% respectively, and the total impact on the CPI rose by about 0.12 percentage points month-on-month."
PPI also fell by 2.5% year-on-year in April, 0.3 percentage points narrower than that in March.
Agricultural and sideline food, communications, electronic equipment manufacturing, and petroleum and coal all narrowed their year-on-year declines to varying degrees.
Finally, a brief summary:
1. Starting in April 2024, China's prices will start the process of rising, which is a planned and publicized increase in advance, one is to open up sources and reduce expenditure, and the other is to fight deflation.
2. The rise is divided into direct promotion and indirect promotion, some products are directly promoted by administrative means, and some products are indirectly affected.
3. The government hopes that the increase will be moderate and controllable, so the increase is not expected to be very large, fluctuating in the range of 10-30%.
4. Industries related to people's living space are easily afraid to rise, such as the food, vegetable and fruit industry.
5. Price increases are like the flame of a candle that will continue to push until inflation enters the expected value, but if even the price of college tuition and health care also rises, that is the real core area.
Finally, for those industries with very low wages, it's time for a salary increase.