Universities worldwide offer scholarships and financial aid to cash-strapped students, but one Chinese university has gone a step further and offered free accommodation to a disabled prospective student… and his mom.

After getting a high score at this year’s Chinese college entrance exam, 18-year-old Wei Xiang wrote to his first-choice college: Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University.

“I was born with spina bifida and intraspinal cysts. My spinal cord is malformed. Due to my complicated conditions, my mom has worked both as a nurse and my personal assistant over the last decade, carrying me on her back to school every single day,” the letter read.

“As my mother will have to travel with me when I study in Beijing, we will lose the family’s only income,” Wei, whose father passed away in 2005, went on, before making his request.

“I sincerely hope that Tsinghua University can offer my mother and me a place to live together,” he wrote.

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The letter was published on China’s WeChat social media platform on Monday and soon got a reply from Liu Zhen, Tsinghua’s director of admissions, who offered to help.

“Tsinghua will try everything to keep this student from dropping out for financial reasons,” Liu wrote in the message.

A follow-up came quickly: on Thursday, Tsinghua University confirmed the school would offer a two-bedroom apartment to Wei and his mother.

The college’s property management center director told China Youth Daily that they would be exempt from dorm fees.

“We will offer you support on campus. Many alumni have also contacted us saying they are willing to support you. Tsinghua will not let any brilliant student miss out school,” Tsinghua’s admission office posted on its Weibo social media platform.

“We are glad to see your strength and hard work through your disease and experiences,” it added. 

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Tuition fees for science students at Tsinghua University amount to 5,000 yuan (740 US dollars) annually, while accommodation costs another 1,500 yuan (220 US dollars) per year.

This pales in comparison to fees at top universities in the US or Europe, but represents a sizeable chunk of income for people like Wei and his mother, who hail from a poverty stricken region in northwest China’s Gansu province, where the annual per capita income was about 26,000 yuan in 2015, according to accounting firm HKDTC.

Tsinghua’s move quickly met with approval in Chinese media and online.

People’s Daily praised it for setting a good example for public organizations in China.  

“We admire the strength Wei and his mother have shown… (but) being strong does not mean they can be neglected by society. Being responsible and helpful should be the aim of each public organization,” it argued.

According to a 2011 UN report, there are around 85 million disabled in China, and most of them live in poverty, with limited access to education and rehabilitation services.

A 2016 survey by a professor at Nanjing Normal University Of Special Education also found about  34.7 percent of disabled children aged 6 to 17 dropped out of school.