Extra costs incurred to secure university seats

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Many high school students who have just completed their final examinations are worrying about whether they can get into a quality university due to the limited number of seats. But Amanda is still confused even though she has been accepted at Atma Jaya Catholic University here.

She has been given a seat in the accounting department of the School of Economy, which was her second choice. Her first choice was the School of Chemical Engineering at Parahyangan Catholic University in Bandung. Atma Jaya held the first round of its entrance exams last month, while the exams for Parahyangan will be held in the next few weeks.

But even if she is accepted at Parahyangan, she will have to think twice before she goes there.

The problem is, she has already paid Rp 15 million for her admission fee to Atma Jaya and she will lose that money if she chooses to go to Parahyangan. In addition, she might not have enough money to pay the second university's admission fee.

Many students have to attend private universities despite the higher cost because of the limited number of seats at state universities.

Last year, only 81,471 students, or 20 percent of the 404,907 applicants were admitted to 46 state universities across the country. In 2001, about 465,000 students took the test but only about 72,000 were accepted.

The supply and demand mechanism may be the best way to explain why many high school students opt to pay huge extra costs to secure their future at a university.

Private universities are well aware of that fact and have cashed in on this opportunity by organizing the admission tests as early as possible, ahead of those held by the state universities, and even before high school students had completed their final exams last week.

"I have been accepted at Bina Nusantara University's School of Information Technology," said Nuren from a state high school in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta.

Nuren said she had to pay Rp 17.1 million just for the admission fee.

"In fact, it was just a backup in case I couldn't get into a state university," said Nuren.

Nuren said her first choice was to study psychology at the Sebelas Maret University in Surakarta in Central Java, the University of Brawijaya in Malang, East Java, or the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.

Nuren said Bina Nusantara would return Nuren's admission fee if she was accepted at any of the three state universities, but it would deduct about Rp 450,000 in administration fees.

Like Bina Nusantara, other private education institutions will return admission fees paid by students on the condition that they were accepted at a state university. But the money will not be returned if a student decides to go to another private university.

Lidwina Maria, the head of the academic bureau at the Atma Jaya University, said the entire admission fee would be lost if applicants continued their studies at another private school.

She said that every applicant was informed about this regulation and signed a statement, saying that they were aware that they would lose their money if they went to another private university.

"But we will refund the money within three weeks at the latest if they provide proof that they have been accepted at a state university and will continue their studies there," said Lidwina.