IN THE FIRST HALF of the year in the Xixiangtang district of Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, about 400 college students were taken to court by a financial loan company because they failed to repay their loans. Thepaper.cn comments:

All 400 college students chose to ignore the court summons and none appeared in court. Not one, zero. And the reason is rather worrying: The majority of the students formed social media groups, which, after discussing the matter, concluded that the loans are illegal so they do not need to repay them.

True, the Ministry of Education clearly said that it prohibits any online loan agency issuing loans to students on campus. But according to a judicial explanation of the Supreme People's Court, as long as the annualized interest rate of a loan does not exceed 24 percent, the court should support the loans. If the annualized interest rate is over 36 percent, the "over" part should be considered ineffective.

It is the students who hope to make profit by borrowing illegal loans and refusing to repay them who are breaking the law.

Worse, some netizens have even applauded the students online, saying they have won a "victory against the vicious loan companies". This is rather misleading. For years, there have been many reports about online loan companies issuing illegal loans to students and forcing the latter to repay abnormally high interest by even resorting to violence. This time it is the loan company that is being exploited.

The attitude of the students is worrying. If the students successfully shrug off their loans, that's a victory for greed over honesty.