Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) has agreed to provide rent subsidies to college students who live in school dorms from February next year, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
However, the expanded rent subsidy plan is still pending official approval from the Executive Yuan.
Beginning in February, college students living in dorms would be eligible for a basic rent subsidy of NT$5,000 (US$157) a semester, with the figure rising to NT$7,000 for students from low-income and lower-middle-income families, the Cabinet said.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
Expanding the rent subsidy program to an estimated 275,000 students living in dorms would cost taxpayers about NT$2.8 billion a year, Chu Chun-chang (朱俊彰), head of the Ministry of Education’s Department of Higher Education, told reporters.
College students would have their dorm rent automatically reduced when they register for the second semester of the 2023-2024 academic year, Chu said.
The subsidies could become a regular program, with the Ministry of the Interior injecting funds from its housing fund.
Newlywed couples, families with young children, economically disadvantaged households and single adults under 40 can apply for rent subsidies ranging from NT$2,000 to NT$8,000, depending on location, under the Cabinet’s NT$30 billion program, which started last year and is to run through 2025, the Cabinet said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
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