It's sink or swim for parents in college stakes
It's sink or swim for parents in college stakes
By Pandaya and Stevie Emilia
JAKARTA (JP): Mrs. Ani, a clothing hawker who lives in a rented house in Central Jakarta, saw her ambition to send her eldest daughter to a state university crash last week.
The month-long tense wait for the result of her daughter's pooled state university entrance test ended with a bitter pill to swallow. Rahma failed.
But Ani is determined to keep her hopes alive. She will let her daughter try again next year. In the meantime, Rahma will take a computer course.
"Private universities are not an option for us because they are too expensive," said Ani, whose husband works in an electrical company to support the family of five.
Harinto, a 64-year-old pensioner, is in the same boat. He said he had aged five years because only one of his 18-year-old twin sons was admitted to a public school.
Gray-haired Harinto is so preoccupied with finding a private school of good reputation but offering affordable fees that he has even neglected his beloved hobby of raising turtle doves.
"I often forget my name lately," he quipped.
Their stories are commonplace among parents from the middle and lower classes every time the new school year begins.
After celebrating their children's graduation from the senior high school, they are facing with letting them sink or swim in the hard race for seats in state schools or universities.
Like Harinto and Ani, parents covet having their children admitted to public schools because they are well-equipped and cheap; 80 percent of their overall cost is shouldered by the state. For private schools, the daunting rule is that tuition fees are commensurate with quality.
The state University of Indonesia, often snidely dubbed "the school of bureaucrats' brats", charges Rp 750,000 (US$62.5) from each new student for the first semester in a four-year undergraduate program. The cost covers tuition, insurance, jacket and orientation program.
For a three-year, nondegree program, the fee is between Rp 2 million and Rp 3 million.
Private schools, which rely on tuition and parents' contributions, cater to the offspring of well-to-do bureaucrats and businesspeople.
Upper class schools, in order to maintain their quality standard, set the level of tuition and contributions so high that only wealthy parents can foot the bill.
They usually find their steady base with the upper classes and wealthy Chinese-Indonesians. The latter have their access to state schools tightly limited, mainly due to political reasons.
This year, 394,694 high school graduates competed for 73,000 seats in the 76 state universities nationwide. The remaining 321,690 scrambled for seats in private colleges.
Although many of the 1,228 private colleges across the country have reported downturns in admissions this year, upscale private universities in Jakarta have been unaffected.
They remain very expensive for most Indonesians, whose income per capita has dropped from US$1,000 before the crisis to about $300 now, according to one estimate.
Pancasila University in South Jakarta, for instance, has set its annual cost for a freshman at almost Rp 7 million a year, which may be paid in four installments, for a four-year undergraduate program.
"The rate has been set the same as it was last year due to the crisis," said the university's spokesman Gianto.
The university, which has enrollment of 13,000, is planning to admit 2,000 students this year.
Trisakti University in West Jakarta, known as the favorite school of scions of wealthy government bureaucrats and businesspeople, charges up to Rp 8.5 million from a new recruit.
Admission fees vary for each particular school. At the school of civil engineering, it ranges from Rp 6.5 million to Rp 8.5 million. In addition, each new student is subject to paying a Rp 1.25 million development contribution and Rp 60,000 for each credit unit.
Social science students are charged less, between Rp 3.5 million and Rp 3.75 million plus the Rp 1.25 million development contribution and Rp 60,000 for each credit they take.
Trisakti spokesman Kamianti Anas said the university offered scholarships of Rp 625,000 each to about 300 students per semester.
Across the street from Trisakti University is Tarumanegara, one of Jakarta's largest private universities with 17,000 students and another 4,000 to be enrolled this year.
Tarumanegara sets its admission fees between Rp 4.5 million and Rp 6.5 million, depending on how well the new students did in their entrance test.
Except for Tarumanegara University, which has a mainly Chinese-Indonesian student body, admission fees at the universities can be paid in three installments.
To help students from less well-to-do families with good academic records, the universities offer scholarships.
"Last year, the (Tarumanegara) foundation spent Rp 700 million in scholarships," university spokesman Hadi said.
This year, the university plans to exempt students whose families lost their property in the mid-May riots from tuition for one semester in a show of sympathy.
The high cost has drawn concern over the future of education in Indonesia.
Education observer Mochtar Buchori has said Indonesia's hope to make education available to every citizen is increasingly threatened.
"Education is getting out of the reach of most citizens because of the soaring cost," the former rector of Muhammadiyah University said.