I can't seem to get my husband's school to sponsor or help me with a spousal visa-been here 2 years on tourist-getting expensive-anyone know why? Iknow there are new rules but they are beyond me.

Check this link, provided by @Ocean, and search for "spouse". Got 21 hits for "spouse"

lawandborder.com/faq-new-china-visa-law/

Strange. I've known plenty of couples where one was a student, and the other wasn't. What school does your SO go to? Sounds fishy to me.

I've only heard one school with a married couple having trouble. But in this case it was a Family Visiting visa as the wife was Chinese. Turned out the school was just fooling him into taking more classes and probably bribing someone somewhere into not letting them change the visa.