By Gong Dan

Two years ago when the application of Nantong Senior Citizen University started, many old people queued all night with stools in order to get a place in the university. Since 2018, Nantong Senior Citizen University launched online application, there was no more queue over the night, but ‘grab for a place’ still exists.

In 2019-2020 academic year, there are 298 classes in Nantong Senior Citizen University. More than 8000 students applied. In average everyone applied for 1.5 classes. ‘Actually since the university was founded in 1986, the places have been very difficult to obtain.’ Vice president of Nantong Senior Citizen University Xu Zhenhua said, ‘this phenomenon does not only appear in Nantong. It is similar in places all over China.’

Why is it difficult to get a place in Senior Citizen University? Xu Zhenhua said that as the population was aging gradually, there have been more and more people who are over 60 years old, and senior citizens expectations about life in later years are not only financial and family supports, they take learning and work more seriously. As a result, more and more old people regard the university as an important platform, hope that they can learn knowledge and make friends here, or even realize their dreams in younger days.

Apart from that, compared with social education institutions, the tuition fee of Senior Citizen University is relatively low. It is learnt that in the present, the fee for one course is 160 Yuan per semester, including 100 Yuan government subsidy. The fee one more course is 160 Yuan. In other words, it only costs 220 Yuan for two courses in Senior Citizen University per semester. ‘Relatively low cost is one of the reasons old people choose Nantong Senior Citizen University.’ Xu Zhenhua said.