I really missed home when I first moved away but I'm used to it now.

Zhang Shenxia is a grade eleven student from Yuzhong county, Gansu province, western China.

ZHANG SHENXIA, GRADE ELEVEN STUDENT YUZHONG COUNTY, GANSU PROVINCE "Amongst my 40 classmates in junior high only 10 went on to high school. I really want to go to university one day to have better opportunities in life."

ZHANG'S MOTHER YUZHONG COUNTY, GANSU PROVINCE "We can't help them much but I never considered sending them off to work. I just hope they can focus on their studies and find a good job to put food on their plates and a roof over their heads. I can't give much but I will support whatever they choose to do eventually."

Zhang now attends boarding school in a county thirty miles away from her village in hopes for a better quality of education. Neither parent ever completed elementary school, as the father now works seasonal construction work and tends to the family crops, the annual household income is barely over a thousand US dollars. This isn't an anomaly, rather quite common in rural areas of Western China.

LIU YI JING, FIRST YEAR MEDICAL STUDENT GANSU UNIVERSITY OF CHINESE MEDICINE "Many villagers are ill-informed and don't tend to their ailments properly, that's why I chose to study medicine. For rural girls like me, the national entrance examination is our first spring board. That's why I persisted to study very hard. "

Zhang starts her day at six every morning and often studies till past midnight. These girls are only two out of nearly a thousand that have or are being funded by Educating Girls in China, a charity dedicated to empowering girls by sponsoring their pursuit of higher education.

TIEN CHING, FOUNDER EDUCATING GIRLS IN RURAL CHINA "I can talk to the parents of our girls and more and more they discover when the girls receive education, they're just as good as boys, even better, because they tend to look after their families and siblings and give back to their family."

Data from 2016 - the latest available - show the average laborer makes around 530 US dollars a month. College graduates get a significant bump to 800 US dollars a month, but those from top universities make three times that amount, on average. There's clearly a high chance of a big pay-off once a child gets his or her degree. But for many families, tuition and the opportunity cost of not working make the dream seem out of reach. This forces many kids into the workforce as soon as they hit the legal working age of 16. Grace Shao, CGTN, Lanzhou, Gansu province.