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- NTU campus housing rents are set to increase by up to 12% in Academic Year 2023/24.
- The price increases will be capped at $50 monthly per person.
- The hikes are due to operating costs rising since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, an NTU spokesperson told Soapbox.
Text by Lok Bing Hong
Photo by Eugene Goh
Graphics by Lauren Chian
Students living in halls of residence throughout NTU might need to tighten their purse strings, with rental fees set to increase across the board at the start of Academic Year 23/24.
The price hikes range from 7.9 to 12 per cent at all halls of residence, at an average of 11 per cent, according to new rates posted on the NTU Student Intranet.
The rooms with the largest price increases are air-conditioned (AC) double rooms in Halls 8 to 15, non-AC double rooms in North Hill, and non-AC double rooms in Nanyang Crescent. These rooms will see monthly rents increase by 12 per cent from $325 per tenant in AY22/23 to $364 in AY23/24.
Tenants of AC single rooms with attached bathrooms in Nanyang Crescent Halls will receive the lowest price hike, at 7.9 per cent to $685 a month.
The price adjustments are due to operating costs rising since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, an NTU spokesperson told Soapbox in an email.
“Hall fee increases were withheld during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Since then, utilities and operational costs, especially cleaning and security services, have continued to increase significantly,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that all fee increases are being capped at $50 monthly per person.
Under the new prices, the cheapest hall rooms in NTU for undergraduates will be non-AC double rooms at Halls 1 and 2, which are priced at $319 per person.
Meanwhile, the most expensive rooms in the coming academic year will be AC single rooms at North Hill Hall, at $535 per month, and AC single rooms with attached bathrooms in Nanyang Crescent Halls, at $685 per month.
The median rent for undergraduate housing in the next academic year will be $487.50 per month.
Rents for rooms in Graduate Halls and Apartment Master Bedrooms, which are the most expensive halls in the coming year, range from $470 to $688 monthly.
Students reacting on social media to the rising fees said the university failed to make an announcement about the price hikes.
Instagram account @ntufinaidfriends, which critiques NTU’s financial aid system, on April 5 posted an infographic of the rental fee changes. “Hall fees will rise by an average of 11 per cent next semester, but NTU failed to notify us about it via email,” the post read.
By press time, the post garnered over 1,500 likes.
The post comes as undergraduate hall applications for the next academic year opened on April 4, and are set to close on April 14.
When asked if NTU intended to make a school-wide announcement about the price changes, the university spokesperson told Soapbox: “The adjusted rates are reflected in the hall application page on the intranet.”
The spokesperson did not immediately respond to further queries, sent outside regular business hours, regarding plans for an announcement.
