Generally speaking, arbitrary charges for education refer to the act of collecting education fees without national laws and policies. Specifically, it refers to the behavior of some localities and schools that violate the relevant laws and policies of the state and provincial people's governments and introduce charging items, expand the charging scope and raise the charging standards without authorization; At the same time, it also includes some grass-roots governments and relevant departments, which collect apportionment and ride fees from students or through schools.

The vast majority of education fees can be divided into four categories: one is "survival" fees. This kind of arbitrary charges mainly occurs in rural primary and secondary schools in economically underdeveloped areas or weak schools in economically underdeveloped urban areas. When the educational funds invested by the government are not enough to maintain the normal operation of the school, the school relies on charging students to maintain the basic needs of running the school.

The second is "developmental" arbitrary charges. This kind of arbitrary charges refers to some schools, in order to meet the basic conditions of modern education, without the guarantee of government education funds, or some schools have incorrect school-running ideas, blindly expand the scale of running schools, engage in the construction of luxury schools that are divorced from reality, and can not be maintained by government funding and normal fees, thus moving towards arbitrary charges.

The third is "profit-seeking" arbitrary charges. When there is a contradiction between the public welfare of education and the profitability of the market, due to the negative impact of the market economy, some education authorities and school leaders are in the wrong direction. On the one hand, they collect "kickbacks" by ordering textbooks, dressing the, selling insurance and other expenses; on the other hand, they make so-called "income generation" by running classes to make up lessons, recruiting "school-choosing students" and holding key classes, which leads schools to use arbitrary charges to pay benefits other than wages to faculty. In particular, some local governments acquiesce in the school's "income-generating" behavior and increase the salaries, benefits and subsidies of faculty in disguise.

The fourth is to "pass on" arbitrary charges. This kind of arbitrary charges means that the government charges schools, rides or students through schools. Government departments charge schools within their jurisdiction, some of which are difficult to apportion. In fact, they are crowding out limited education funds and school fee income. These arbitrary charges have increased the burden on schools, and to some extent encouraged schools to pass on the economic burden to students' families.