A new, relaxed student loan program, featuring easier repayment terms and higher monthly allowances, is scheduled to take effect today, the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
The new program, introduced to help ease the economic pressure on students, is expected to benefit about 100,000 students and 100,000 graduates, the ministry said.
Under the new regulations, for students from low income or lower-middle income families, the maturity period of their loans is now two years for each semester the loan was made, the Department of Higher Education said.
Under the old system, the repayment period for government-issued student loans was one-and-a-half years for every semester of tuition covered, regardless of family income.
Eligibility for three-year repayment extensions will be widened to include lower-middle income families and all borrowers who make less than NT$30,000 (US$1,000) a month, the department said.
Currently, only students from low-income families or those earning less than NT$25,000 a month are eligible for the maximum three-year extension.
The maximum amount loaned to low-income students to cover living costs will be increased from NT$4,000 to NT$8,000 a month. Lower-middle income students will also now be eligible to obtain living-cost loans, at a maximum of NT$4,000 a month.
According to the ministry, the government received about 770,000 applications for student loans in the 2010 academic year and it spent more than NT$3 billion subsidizing the interest on student loans.
If a student borrows money for four years of undergraduate study, two years in a master’s program and four years of doctorate study, the repayment plan can be spread over a maximum period of 31 years, including a three-year deferred repayment period.
However, the relaxed loan repayment program was criticized by Chen Ting-hao (陳廷豪), a member of a group that promotes the rights of university students.
Chen said the most fundamental way of reducing the financial pressure on students is to ensure that tuition is affordable so that they do not need loans. He suggested the government provide more funding to universities, especially private ones, so that they do not have to increase tuition to cover their costs.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS