In an effort to deal with the shortage of college housing, the local education commission said some Beijing universities may soon commercialize the development and management of student dormitories.

The new management would take the dormitory buildings completely out of the administrative mechanisms of the universities and colleges and leave them for interested enterprises, reported China Daily.

"Although the municipal government will surely increase its financial input in education to fulfill the goal, not a single cent will be spent in this field any more," Geng Xuechao, vice- director of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, told the Beijing Municipal Political Consultative Conference November 23.

In the first half of this year, the committee vowed to double the number of students in the Beijing-based universities and colleges in five to six years, increasing it from today's 250,000 to a half million. But it soon found the goal out of reach because of the obvious shortage of dormitory buildings.

"Our new dormitories will mainly be built outside the schools," Geng said. "And the municipal government has set aside 12 pieces of land for this purpose."

To make this new business even more attractive, the committee has applied for special tax waivers for the developers and managers, China Daily said.