60,000 Prospective Students Withdraw, Lestari Moerdijat Calls for Evaluation of Education Financing Scheme to Ensure It Is on Target

WAKIL Ketua MPR RI Lestari Moerdijat has called on the government and policymakers to re-evaluate the accuracy of education financing schemes to prevent young people from losing hope due to economic limitations. During the Denpasar 12 Discussion Forum in Jakarta, Wednesday (1/7), Lestari referred to a presentation indicating that around 60,000 prospective students who had been declared successful in university selection chose not to re-register due to a lack of access to financing. “This generally happens because they do not have access to financing. This certainly raises a strategic question: why are so many Indonesian children still losing the opportunity to learn, even though the right to education is guaranteed in the constitution?” she said. Lestari believes this phenomenon can serve as a good starting point for the state to review the extent to which education budget allocations have been accurately absorbed and have touched the root of the problem in society. She also encouraged an in-depth study on the effectiveness of education funding to ensure that the budget is truly allocated for inclusive and progressive educational purposes. Lestari is optimistic that by improving the accuracy of targeted budgeting, the state can guarantee that no more children of the nation will have to halt their education simply because of financial barriers. Responding to this, the Director of Learning and Student Affairs at the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Kemdiktisaintek), Beny Bandanadjaja, clarified the misinformation circulating in the public regarding the 60,000 new prospective students who were said to have withdrawn or not re-registered in this year’s selection. Beny stressed that the narrative of 60,000 students withdrawing in 2026 is incorrect, given that the independent pathway for new student admissions this year is still ongoing until the final deadline of 31 July 2026. According to him, the widely discussed figure of 60,000 actually refers to the presentation of 2025 evaluation data delivered by the National Selection Committee for New Student Admissions during a Hearing Meeting (RDP) with the Indonesian House of Representatives. He detailed that out of a total national capacity of 627,000 seats in 2025, 585,000 people were successfully accepted through the selection process. The shortfall of around 40,000 empty seats was purely due to the capacity not being filled because participants did not meet the minimum quality standards, not because they withdrew. “Of the 585,000, it is true that some did not re-register. If calculated, the 2025 data shows it was around 17,000, or about 2.8 per cent of those accepted,” said Beny.