(Bloomberg) -- China will hand out twice the number of scholarships and step up financial aid to students as part of a series of policy measures announced by the Ministry of Finance on Saturday.
The country will double the annual scholarship quota for undergraduate students to 120,000, that of postgraduates to 70,000, and doctoral students to 20,000, Vice Finance Minister Guo Tingting said at a briefing. The limit on student loans will also be raised.
The measures come as youth unemployment rose in August to the highest level this year. With the economic outlook remaining gloomy, many college students choose to stay in campus for further education. A flurry of Chinese universities are extending the duration of their postgraduate programs in a bid to ease pressure on the labor market.
China will also increase the annual scholarship value to 10,000 yuan ($1,415) per undergraduate student, up from 8,000 yuan currently, Guo said.
The country spent a total of 93.2 billion yuan to support more than 30 million college students last year, according to the Finance Ministry. Student loans, which are disbursed by banks, amounted to 70 billion yuan last year.
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