Seeking Knowledge or Buying a Degree? An Autopsy of Campus Commercialisation Policy and the Middle-Class Illusion

Lately, every time the new student admissions season arrives, the public sphere and social media are always abuzz with complaints about the nominal amount of Single Tuition Fees (UKT). Many prospective new students are frustrated because their tuition rates have skyrocketed, disproportionate to the reality of their parents’ income. Quite a few ultimately choose to withdraw from university due to financial constraints. This phenomenon feels deeply ironic. Higher education, which ideally should be a means of social mobility, is now slowly shifting into a luxury item accessible only to affluent economic groups. If this condition is allowed to persist, the state is indirectly sending a misguided message: that higher education is not a right of all people, but a privilege.

As a member of the academic community observing this dynamic, the author sees the UKT issue not merely as a technical problem of nominal figures on a payment slip. This is a tangible impact of a paradigm shift in our education policy, which is increasingly leaning towards capitalisation and commercialisation. Education, which should function as a tool for liberation and welfare equalisation, is now transforming into a business commodity laden with profit-and-loss calculations.

If we trace the root of this entanglement, the core problem stems from the policy of transforming campuses into State Universities with Legal Entity status (PTN-BH), legalised through Law Number 12 of 2012 on Higher Education. Conceptually, the government narrates this policy as an effort to grant ‘autonomy’ to campuses to manage their financial and academic governance independently so they can compete internationally. In reality, however, this autonomisation often becomes a bridge for the state to reduce its share of responsibility in funding higher education.

When subsidies from the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN) are limited, PTN-BH campuses are forced to find ways to cover ever-increasing operational costs. The most immediate impact of this financial pressure is the burdening of costs onto students. Campuses begin to enlarge the quota for independent admission pathways, open non-regular programmes with sky-high fees, and raise the upper limits of UKT classification.

Herein lies the contradiction. State universities, built and operated using public funds (the people’s taxes), now operate resembling a corporation. Students are no longer viewed as valuable national assets being educated, but as consumers of educational services. When free-market logic is applied in the world of education, the economic principle applies: you get what you pay for. Those with strong financial capital will secure a place, while those lacking it will be sidelined from the competition.

In this whirlpool of commercialisation policy, the most vulnerable group that often falls through the cracks of protection schemes is the middle class. This group occupies a precarious position in the social stratification. On one hand, their income is deemed ‘sufficient’ administratively because it is above the minimum wage, or they own a vehicle or a permanent home. On the other hand, that income is drained by basic needs, instalments, and high inflationary pressures.

The UKT assessment system often fails to capture this fluid economic reality. Consequently, children from middle-class families are frequently placed into high UKT brackets. They are not poor enough to meet the strict qualifications for social assistance like the KIP-Kuliah scholarship, yet not rich enough to pay tuition fees without sacrificing the family’s economic stability. The widespread phenomenon of students trapped in online loan schemes to pay their UKT some time ago serves as concrete evidence of how fragile our middle class has become due to unsupportive education policies. The current UKT determination formula appears logically flawed because it rigidly maps the community’s financial capability and ignores real-world economic vulnerabilities.

We need to refresh our collective memory regarding the mandate of Article 31 of the 1945 Constitution, which affirms that every citizen has the right to education. The government is indeed required to allocate a minimum of 20% of the APBN to the education sector. However, the efficiency of this allocation needs to be evaluated. Why is the funding portion for regular state universities still so minimal that campuses must commercialise themselves?

In the public economics theory proposed by Paul Samuelson, higher education is essentially categorised as a public good, not a private good. The benefits of producing a critical, innovative, and highly skilled graduate are not only enjoyed by the individual concerned but return to the state in the form of national progress, technological innovation, and economic development. Therefore, burdening the cost of producing this superior generation entirely onto the personal shoulders of students is a paradigm error.

If this current of educational neoliberalism continues to be maintained, the long-term impact will be severely damaging. We will witness a sharpening of social stratification, where universities become exclusive spaces only for the elite. Meanwhile, children from the lower and middle classes will lose their collective motivation to excel, because they know that no matter how hard they study, the thick wall of tuition fees will still block their path.