News topic: Life

News hedline: College dorm life

News website:

http://life.globaltimes.cn/life/2009-10/478838.html

News provider:王翔

  Most students going to a Chinese university share very a similarexperience when it comes to

accommodations: a dorm room crammed with anywhere between four to eight, no air conditioning and lights out after 11 pm.

   There's no need to mention the bathrooms.But there are some students missing out on the joys of communal living, watching from afar in the quiet, private comfort of their own apartment. To be one of them, all one needs is to be hard working, studious and have parents willing to shell out hundreds of thousands of yuan.Consider Yang, an English senior from Heilongjiang Province at China Foreign Affairs University. Last December, thanks to her parents, she is now a student living in style with a 60-square-meter, 700,000 yuan ($102,550) apartment in Chaoyang District, Beijing.

   While considering the recent slip in real estate prices an opportune time to buy property, Yang's parents were more concerned with taking pressure off their daughter after her graduation."Standing on your own feet in Beijing is a great challenge to any new graduate. Having your own place takes a lot off your mind, like paying rent," said Yang's parents, who are both civil servants in Helongjiang Province, Northeast China.

   Sun Chen, a junior at a university in Beijing, also was lucky enough to get a new place from his father during the National Day holiday. Originally, Sun was renting a house with a friend near his school in July while preparing to take graduation examinations next January.

   However on National Day, Sun's parents came to visit up from Jiangsu Province. Finding their son living in what they saw as crude conditions, they immediately decided to buy an apartment for him."This provides a quiet place for him to prepare for exams, and in the future, he can live here when he gets married, both ways helping his future in Beijing," said Sun's father.

   Sun's mother, manager of a private electronic enterprise in Suzhou, added that house prices in the capital have risen dramatically over the past decade, making buying property a wise investment.

   Student homeowners are springing up not only in top-tier cities like Beijing, but also in other major cities across China.Among a class of 52 journalism majors at Chengdu Sports University, seven have their own houses, two of which were bought in a lump sum payment and five with mortgages, all paid by their parents, according to a Chengdu-based West China City Daily report.

   Wang Qi, a real estate agent in Chengdu, said that since late September, she has helped five families buy houses for their children."While the parents sign for the loans, the property was always put in the child's name," she added.

   Fan Bangyong, a senior consultant at SAGA, a Chengdu-based comprehensive real estate services company, said that if a family has the economic means, purchasing a house or an apartment for their children while they attend university is a sound investment."It can either be used by the children or resold later without losing value," he said.

   Liu Shimin, a professor at Sichuan Normal University, believes this trend of parents purchasing places to live for their children a part of Chinese culture."In many Western countries, parents tend to stress independence with their adult children, but Chinese parents are much more engaged in their life," he said.

   Liu does not object to the idea of such young homeowners, but he also warns students not to flaunt or show off their pads."Instead, parents should use it as an opportunity to cultivate their children's sense of responsibility by making them pay the mortgage for their houses, building the investment together," he said.