Let "campus loans" return to healthy development
Just as school started in September, I saw a news online: a senior student signed up for pre employment training. Due to tuition fees of over 10000 yuan, their family did not agree. Therefore, the student borrowed money from a small loan platform recommended by the training institution to participate in the training. A few days later, they were found hanging themselves in the park, and the related reasons are still under investigation.
As universities continue to open, it is necessary to remind college students to stay away from bad campus loans. Schools and regulatory agencies should also take multiple measures to jointly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of students.
"Campus loans" can be understood as financial loans specifically issued to college students, or financial loans that, although not explicitly limited to college students, have clearly targeted or deliberately matched the actual financing needs of college students in terms of service conditions and content. The reason why the loan target is limited to college students is that college students are generally individuals over 18 years old with full civil capacity, possessing full civil capacity to sign financial loan contracts, and can become effective collection targets when overdue repayment occurs.
The reason why campus loans exist is also because students have actual loan needs. As adults about to enter society, college students, although unable to achieve complete economic independence, have their own thoughts and plans for life, and do have a demand for entrepreneurship loans, beauty loans, training loans, and so on. In order to prepare for the interview, students need to print exquisite job resumes, take professional ID photos, purchase appropriate workplace attire, and sometimes even self pay to go to other places for interviews according to the requirements of the employer, which will incur significant expenses.
However, we have seen that some platforms may lure college students into the trap of high loans with phrases such as "as long as they are students and have an ID card, they will lend you money", "zero threshold, no collateral, no interest, one second payment, consumption first, and payment later". Some institutions charge job guidance, interview training, and other fees under the pretext of enhancing competitiveness, making it easy for fresh college students to fall into the trap of "training loans". When handling these loans, on the one hand, they downplay the negative consequences and repayment pressure after overdue, and on the other hand, they cleverly name themselves and charge various high handling fees, investigation fees, etc. to avoid regulatory requirements.
In March this year, the Ministry of Education and five other departments issued the "Interim Measures for Financial Management of Off campus Training Institutions", which put forward comprehensive and standardized requirements for the financial activities of off campus training institutions. It is explicitly stipulated that "off campus training shall not use training loans to pay training fees". At the end of May this year, the National Student Assistance Management Center of the Ministry of Education also issued the first warning of 2023, reminding students to be wary of the "training loan" scam.
For schools, they should guide and cultivate students to have a correct consumption concept. It is recommended that schools include life consumption counseling as one of the job contents of employment guidance for college students. Through discussions, exchanges, lectures, and other means, students should be guided in their consumption concepts, so that they can maintain a clear mind and rational judgment when encountering tricks and traps.
At the same time, schools should actively cooperate with financial institutions to facilitate legitimate campus credit service channels, allowing some compliant loan projects from banks to enter the campus, providing students with actual loan needs with the opportunity to understand compliant loan projects from formal financial institutions, borrow funds through normal channels, and obtain financial support more conveniently, with dignity and ability to make loan consumption.
For commercial banks and policy banks, under the premise of controllable risks, targeted development of financial products such as college student assistance, training, consumption, and entrepreneurship should be carried out, providing customized and standardized financial services to college students, reasonably setting credit limits and interest rates, improving the quality and efficiency of college student campus loan services, and opening up formal and transparent channels for campus credit services.
Financial regulatory agencies should strengthen the supervision and rectification of illegal loans, adhere to the principle of substance over form, and promptly rectify and punish financial projects and innovations that use "innovation" as a pretext and violate regulations, with a particular focus on monitoring the repayment status and overdue ratio of borrowers under the age of 25. For other lending institutions outside of banks, especially small loan companies, self-discipline agreements can be signed by industry associations at all levels to prevent innovative loan products from being sidelined and promote the healthy development of campus loans.
