As a graduate student from the countryside, Xiaonuo encountered a problem that caught her off guard after entering Peking University for graduate studies - the school did not arrange dormitories for graduate students. This is undoubtedly a huge blow to a woman who has just entered her college career. In order to solve the accommodation problem, she had to rent a two-person room with another girl near the south gate of Peking University, and she had to pay a high rent of 2,300 yuan per month. Although she can get 600 yuan a month for graduate school subsidies, plus the expenses of tuition and accommodation, her family's financial pressure is still very huge. In order to reduce the burden on her parents, she can only try her best to take on some part-time jobs, such as office internships, event reception, translation, etc., and can earn about 3,000 yuan a month. However, the part-time job also bothered her because it took time away from her studies that she should have focused on. As a result, she struggled with how to balance her part-time job and studies.
Xiaonuo is worthy of being a student of Peking University, and she is unwilling to be troubled, she left a reflection and self-question on social **: "Why don't graduate students provide collective dormitories for graduate students?".She realized that she was not alone, and that many graduate students like her had fallen into the "dorm-free era." Nankai University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Institute of Technology and many other 985 or 211 universities have made it clear in their 2024 enrollment brochures that they will not provide dormitories for part-time master's students or orientation students. Even if some colleges and universities adopt the model of "opening up for accommodation places" because of the lack of dormitories, nearly half of the students still need to face the challenge of solving the accommodation problem on their own.
Why are universities no longer providing graduate dormitories?The root cause of this problem is the result of the continuous expansion of Chinese universities in recent years, which has led to a surge in the number of graduate students, while the dormitory facilities have not been able to expand accordingly. Looking back over the past two decades, the number of graduate admissions nationwide from 1999 was 730,000 to 80 in 201750,000 people, the number of graduate students has increased by nearly 11 times, and has now reached 26390,000 people. According to the Ministry of Education**, the enrollment expansion rate will stabilize at around 10% in 2023 and continue to grow over the next 5-7 years. At the same time, the delay rate of doctoral students cannot be ignored, from 46 in 20035% rose to 64% in 2018, and more than 60% of PhD students failed to graduate on time. This expansion and postponement of doctoral studies has led to an increase in the number of students, while the dormitory infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the pace of development.
In addition, the lack of follow-up on dormitory construction is also one of the reasons why the school is unable to provide enough dormitories. As an important part of the school's infrastructure, the construction of dormitories has been plagued by a shortage of funds. Due to financial allocation constraints, the school can only rely on corporate self-financing or public welfare donations to build new dormitories. Taking Fuzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine as an example, the more than 40 million yuan they built a new dormitory in 2021 came from self-raised funds. However, more universities are reluctant to build infrastructure because of the fear of excessive debt and interest burden. As a result, as the number of students continues to increase and the construction of dormitories lags behind, the university's ability to provide dormitories for graduate students has become increasingly limited.
3. Solution: Provide rent subsidies and reasonable allocation of dormitory resourcesIn order to solve the problem of no dormitory for graduate students, the university can take the following measures:
1.Rent subsidy for students without dormitory: The university can provide a certain rent subsidy to graduate students who solve their own accommodation problems to reduce their financial burden.
2.Reasonable allocation of dormitory resources: The university can ensure that every graduate student in need can obtain the opportunity to obtain dormitory through reasonable planning and management of dormitory resources, and avoid the situation that dormitory can only be obtained by "competing for places".
3.Increase investment in dormitory construction: Schools can increase financial allocations for dormitory construction, or actively introduce corporate or public welfare donations to expand the scale of dormitories and meet the needs of the growing number of students for dormitory facilities.
4.Strengthen cooperation with social resources: Schools can cooperate with local real estate developers or urban communities to jointly carry out dormitory construction projects and solve accommodation problems by sharing resources.
5.Improve the management level of graduate dormitories: The university can strengthen the management and maintenance of dormitories to ensure a safe and comfortable living environment for students and improve the quality of life of graduate students during their time at the university.
In short, in order to solve the problem of graduate students not having dormitories, the university needs to take active measures to provide various forms of support and subsidies to ensure that graduate students can successfully complete their studies. At the same time, the university should also increase the construction and management of dormitories to improve the efficiency of dormitory resource utilization. Only by working together can graduate students be better supported and helped during the difficult study period.