BEIJING — China has provided financial aid for 135 million students from preschool education to higher education in 2018, according to the Ministry of Education.

The investment was worth 204.3 billion yuan ($30.5 billion), up 8.54 percent from 2017, said Ma Jianbin, an official with the ministry, at a news conference over the weekend.

Students of the nine-year compulsory education that ranges from primary school to junior high school enjoyed the policies of miscellaneous fee exemption and free textbooks in 2018, Ma said.

Nearly 44 million college students received 115 billion yuan of financial aid last year, up 9.48 percent from the previous year, said the official.

The country has provided more than one trillion yuan to 620 million students from 2012 to 2018, generally reaching the target of “not letting any student drop out of school because of financial difficulties.”