Private dormitory for students in eye of storm over annual charges

Pengyuan Apartment, a dormitory for students of a university's branch in Qinhuangdao city, North China's Hebei province, has caught the public attention in past two days for charging high accommodation fees from students, a report by Hongxing News said on Monday.

The apartment, run by a company, charges each student 16,640 yuan ($2,324) per year for a shared room which can accommodate two students of Northeastern University at Qinhuangdao, the report said.

Hongxing News reported that dormitories at the university campus do not have sufficient space for students, forcing some to live in the Pengyuan Apartment.

But its price is high enough to rent a house of more than 100 square meters with three bedrooms near the campus, the Finance and Economics website reported.

The upper limit of school's dormitory accommodation charges must be under 1,200 yuan per year, according to relevant regulations of Hebei Bureau of Commodity Price.

A  platform of Pengyuan Apartment showed the exceeding part - 15,440 yuan - is for other services, including facilities, room services and water fees.

Qinhuangdao Pengyuan College Logistics Service Co, which runs the dormitory, has raised the dormitory price several times in the past years.

Students who refused to pay the extra charge were threatened with eviction or warned they will not be allowed to use electricity.

Zhu Liqiu, head of the company, is currently a member of the Hebei provincial and Qinhuangdao municipal political advisory bodies and was once a deputy to the National People's Congress, reported by the Finance and Economics website.

Neither the university nor the company has officially responded to media's reports.

Liu Jianing contributed to the story.