Every two months, Lawrence drives his BMW 530 to Anhui airport, hops aboard a plane to Beijing and attends a training class at Peking University for the children of China's wealthiest.

The 21-year-old, surnamed Xu, who prefers to stay anonymous behind his English name, has been making the four-day trip since September to the elite university, despite only graduating with an English degree from Deakin University in Australia. He is qualified to attend because his father is a Chinese entrepreneur - another name for the extremely rich.

Lawrence, director of the purchasing department at his father's heavy machinery company, considers the 40,000-yuan (S$8,180) training course well worth his family's money.

"It presents me with a great opportunity to meet others with similar life patterns and learn practical managerial skills," he said.

According to the Hurun China Rich List, there are more than 825,000 people in China with a personal wealth of more than 10 million yuan, and 51,000 tycoons with at least 100 million yuan in the bank. How to make youngsters fill the shoes of their successful parents is the question on the lips of many resourceful universities.

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