that Central and local governments will increase their education budgets to help universities across the mainland pay off construction debts of more than US$26 billion, said Education Minister Zhou Ji Wednesday. The debts stem from large-scale construction projects and infrastructure uprgrades to accommodate the growth in the number of full-time students, which has increased fivefold over the past nine years to 5.4 million last year, the South China Morning Post reported. The government has made agreements with some banks to transfer short-term loans to long-term ones, but has required campuses to sell off land to help resolve their debts.
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