ST : NTU to build more hostels to ease crunch

Jul 10, 2010

NTU to build more hostels to ease crunch

By 2015, 8 new hostels will offer 14,200 places; second hall for graduate students also planned

IN FIVE years, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) hopes to silence complaints among its students who want rooms on campus but fail to get them.

Eight more hostels will be built to add to its current 16. This will create 14,200 hostel places, up from the current 9,200, it said on Thursday.

The university estimates that two-thirds of its undergraduate population in 2015 will want to stay on campus, either because they are foreigners or are Singaporeans who live far away from the campus in Jurong.

The university's current undergraduate enrolment is 23,000.

NTU's senior associate provost, Professor Er Meng Hwa, told The Straits Times that the estimate of 14,200 hostel places for 2015 was based on past hall application trends and projections of the likely future demand for rooms.

The university added that hostel fees will be gradually increased to cover operational costs.

Prof Er did not give the timeframe or the quantum of the hike, but said the university would be mindful of keeping fees affordable.

An NTU student now pays between $165 and $210 a month for a twin-sharing room, and between $230 and $290 for a single room. Fees were last raised in 2008.

NTU also announced it will build a second hostel for graduate students by early 2013. Together, the two halls will provide 1,170 places, up from the 480 places now available.

News of the additional places was welcomed by students, who are allocated rooms based on criteria such as the time taken for them to get from home to campus, their level of involvement in co-curricular activities and their willingness to room with a foreign student.

Prof Er said that of the 11,000 students who apply for hostel rooms every year, 83 per cent are successful.

Economics student Ng Yee Theng, 22, is among the remaining 17 per cent who did not get a room this year, despite being on the team producing the campus newspaper, being a member of a business club, and living in the east.

She will have graduated by the time more rooms become available in five years. Looking ahead to next month, when she will begin her final year, she said: 'It would help if I could save time travelling, so I'm quite disappointed.'

AMELIA TAN