Minister Clarifies Erroneous Data on 60,000 Prospective Students Withdrawing
The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Kemendiktisaintek) has corrected information suggesting that approximately 60,000 accepted students did not re-register, stating it does not reflect the actual situation. The ministry’s official, Brian, explained that the data which drew public attention was an evaluation of the 2025 new student admissions, not 2026. The 2026 National Selection for New Student Admissions (SNPMB) process is currently still underway and has not concluded.
According to official data from the SNPMB Committee, the figure of around 60,000 circulating in the public domain is an accumulation of two components: 42,315 unfilled capacity slots and 17,816 accepted participants who did not re-register. The first component relates to university capacity. In 2025, the total capacity provided through the SNBP, SNBT, and Independent Selection pathways reached 627,957 seats. Of that number, 585,642 participants were declared accepted, leaving 42,315 seats (6.7 per cent) unfilled.
This situation occurred because the number of participants meeting the academic standards set by universities was still below the available capacity. “Universities continue to apply quality standards in the selection process, so seats that do not meet qualifications are not filled merely to meet capacity targets. This policy is a form of commitment to maintaining the quality of higher education so that graduates possess competencies that meet the needs of society, the workforce, and industry,” Brian stated in an official release on Friday, 3 July 2026.
The second component concerns participants who were declared accepted but did not re-register. Of the total 585,642 participants accepted in 2025, as many as 567,826 participants, or 97.2 per cent, re-registered and continued the process to become new students. Meanwhile, 17,816 participants, or about 2.8 per cent, decided not to re-register. Based on the SNPMB Committee’s analysis, several factors influenced this, including participants being accepted into study programmes that were not their primary choice, so they opted for other selection pathways, participants being accepted at state universities or other ministry/institutional universities, as well as various personal and family considerations.