Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, colleges and universities across China have postponed the beginning of the academic year, but how to deal with student's full rent payments has become a topic of concern for many students. On May 3, Xi'an FanYi University will refund a total of more than 17 million yuan to students for three months' accommodation, ThePaper reported.

"There is a certain amount of pressure (financially) on the school for this refund," said Qiu Jie, head of the university's publicity department, added that the school was doing this "to benefit students."

According to the university's arrangement, the students will return to school between May 6 and 12 and have a holiday on July 17. The actual residence time is about two months. "In order to reduce the burden on students, we will refund the accommodation fee for three months on the basis of two months' accommodation," said Qiu. Due to the large number of people involved in this refund and its wide distribution, the refund will be carried out in batches, and the school will complete the refund as soon as possible.

"The university will pay more than 17 million yuan for the refund, which will benefit more than 20,000 students. Because of the different types of dormitories, the fees will be different for each student," Qiu told ThePaper.

According to Qiu, although students do not live in the accommodation, operating costs still exist, such as the administrator's salary, daily cleaning, and maintenance, especially due to this year's epidemic, the school has strengthened the epidemic prevention measures. "These are costs," added Qiu.

"The one-time refund of more than 17 million yuan is still a pressure on the school," Qiu said that in addition to the refund, the school has so far spent 2.7 million yuan on epidemic prevention materials, which will be increased if necessary.

In addition to these, the university also set up subsidies for students from Wuhan, which were later extended to all students whose families were affected by the outbreak.

According to ThePaper, on April 11, the Ministry of Education of China issued a statement saying that schools should reasonably determine the refund method "according to the actual accommodation situation" of the accommodation fees already collected according to the academic year.

As of May 3, several provinces and regions of China, including Hebei, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Shaanxi, and Ningxia, have announced that they will refund part of the accommodation fee to students.

(Cover image from VCG)