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.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its