A flagging economy, tight credit and rising tuition are teaching college students hard lessons these days. And their reward for surviving until graduation? A lean job market and plenty of debt.

Finance Factors is heavily invested in Mainland real estate that has declined sharply with the nation's slumping economy. Court documents in a now settled lawsuit by shareholders of the company's parent Finance Enterprises Ltd. also show the firm issued loans to company directors and their relatives in what one board member described as a "culture of illegality and self-dealing."

Francis Wong doesn't ask for anything for her family or herself this Christmas. The 70-year-old grandmother, who adopted a grandson and became a legal guardian for one grandniece and two grandnephews, wouldn't mind a larger car to carry her family of five and her wheelchair, but that's too much to ask of the community, Lani Davis, Wong's caseworker, said.