In the wave of expansion of master's students, the shortage of accommodation resources in China's colleges and universities has once again become a hot topic. A recent report pointed out that a number of universities have clearly not provided accommodation for full-time professional degree master's students in the enrollment brochure for master's students, which has aroused widespread concern in the society. This phenomenon has attracted attention as early as 2019, and now, with the deepening of higher education reform, how to solve the problem of accommodation for professional master's degrees has become an urgent problem for colleges and universities.
According to reports, some well-known universities such as Peking University and Nanjing University have made it clear that master's students will no longer be entitled to on-campus accommodation in 2024. The motivation behind this decision is the need for the construction of modern universities, and it has become the general trend to promote the socialization of logistics services. However, this also brings with it a series of problems, especially for professional master's students.
In the past 20 years, China's colleges and universities have experienced resistance and controversy in promoting the socialization and reform of logistics services. Some colleges and universities try to provide student housing services by off-campus enterprises and institutions, so that the school can focus on education and teaching. However, this reform has been questioned as it could affect students' boarding education and increase the financial burden on students.
Now, with the advancement of credit-based teaching management and the improvement of the quality of postgraduate training, colleges and universities are facing new challenges. Solving the problem of graduate accommodation, especially the postponement of professional master's graduation, has become an urgent problem to be solved. At the same time, with the continuous expansion of graduate students, the traditional collective dormitory service mode has gradually lagged behind.
Some professional masters have questioned the cancellation of on-campus accommodation services by universities, believing that it is unfair treatment for them. They point out that the cost of renting an apartment off-campus is relatively high, while the dormitory provided by the school is relatively cheap. This has sparked a debate about whether there is discrimination against professional masters.
To solve this problem, we should not simply ask professional masters to rent their own houses, but should start from the actual situation of students and provide them with corresponding convenience for renting off-campus. The school should cooperate with the locality, neighborhood and community to jointly provide off-campus accommodation resources, and the local government should include students' off-campus rental housing into the talent low-rent housing policy, and give appropriate preferential treatment and subsidies.
At the same time, the school should also integrate on-campus and off-campus housing resources, and apply for all students equally, so that students can choose to live in on-campus dormitories or off-campus dormitories according to their actual conditions. On the basis of the implementation of the free application system, poor students should also be given priority in applying for on-campus housing, so as to ensure that the basic security responsibilities for all students can be fulfilled.
In fact, in developed countries, only a few universities offer a partial on-campus housing service for undergraduate and graduate students. Many of the university's senior undergraduate and graduate students rent off-campus, allowing the university to better focus on education and academic research rather than being bothered by housing issues.
Therefore, we should not be surprised that universities no longer offer accommodation, but should focus on how to implement socialized accommodation. Only in this way can we not only facilitate the running of schools, but also give students the right to make their own choices, and fulfill their basic responsibility for guaranteeing them. The cooperation between universities and all sectors of society is the key to solving this problem and jointly contributing to the sustainable development of China's higher education.