Guangxi University has taken the lead in online dorm bookings, providing the service for 5,000 freshmen this term.

It had a noble purpose: convenience for the campus newcomers. However, it seems things took a turn in the wrong direction.

On September 9, the enrollment day, the on-campus dorms were somewhat in chaos and flooded with complaints.

Students and parents could be heard asking for reassignments.

The e-booking system required students to go to a school website to choose university housing before August 28.

Dorm fees range from 250 to 1,000 yuan (US$30-120) per academic year.

Students were told to log onto the website, sign in with a number that was on their enrollment notice, and click on a dorm preference.

It wasn't supposed to turn out the way it did.

"We hoped to provide better services for students and to give people with different economic conditions a greater say in where they chose to live. The new method also helped to reduce labour and operating costs for housing staff," explains Ye Junfei, of the student affairs department, which came up with the service idea.

But it posed problems for students from poor families.

"It is almost impossible for us poor students to benefit from the service. We have no access to the Internet in our villages, so how can we choose the dorm we want online?" complained Ge Li, from Hunan Province, who is about to start her freshman year as a Chinese major.

In fact, the school does accept bookings done by telephone and mail, but most dorm rooms were booked through the online service.

By the time Ge arrived, there were only 800- to 1,000-yuan (US$96-120) rooms left. The cheaper rooms had all been booked. Her peasant parents could only afford a 250-yuan dorm.

In the past, room assignments depended on individual departments. Some departments just did it arbitrarily, while others tried to match student interests or preferences based on registration forms.

Newcomers in the same department were usually assigned to the same living space.
Then, the online service came along and changed that.

Dan Yan, an English major, lives with three students majoring in Chinese, law, and administration and has this to say: "My roommates are all kind and friendly. But I'd still like to live with my classmates so we could talk about our classes and professors."

Guangxi University was a pioneer in the online service, but the head of the student affairs department admits that it "was useful, but still in need of improvement."

The university said it would open more phone lines for poor students and leave some different-priced rooms open for possible switches when students moved in.

Some people see the sense of the new service, but still think that "school authorities should consider students' conditions and concerns before putting a new service in place," says Li Yanfei, head of Renmin University's Communist Youth League.

In the United States and Britain, freshmen are assigned a dorm room by the university housing office when they apply, while sophomores, juniors and seniors are not guaranteed a room. They can add their names to a list if there are future openings. They can also list a preference, for a non-smoker, for example.

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