The Irony of (the Plan for) Limiting New Students

Examining the plan to limit the number of new students at State Universities (PTN), perhaps we need to look at it from outside the box. With the spirit of equalising the number of students, this quota policy is intended to enable Private Universities (PTS) to increase their new student intake after several years of decline, in line with the freeing up of PTN to accept new students through independent pathways.

It becomes ironic because the number of students ‘up for grabs’ is only around 10 million or equivalent to a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for higher education of 32.89%. Meanwhile, more than 67% of the college-age population still cannot access higher education for various reasons. The potential is very large and still wide open to be given access to universities. Why is this 67% seemingly not given attention?

From the perspective of higher education as part of the industrial economy, this can be viewed from three approaches.

First, structure. Of the over 4,000 universities in Indonesia, 99.8% are conventional universities based on physical infrastructure/buildings and offline learning systems where the university is located. This reflects a conservative paradigm about higher education where students ‘come to’ the educational institution. This is the main reason why only 32.89% are able to access higher education.

Because to attend university, it’s not just about being able to pay tuition fees, but there are other accompanying costs such as transportation and/or accommodation. Not to mention the opportunity costs lost, such as the need to earn a living, care for parents, and other reasons that make access to universities still limited.

Second, behaviour (conduct). For higher education providers, including the government, the operational costs of managing physical-based universities are certainly not cheap. Private universities with limited capital generally pass on most or all of these costs to students. Therefore, the number of students (student body) becomes very important to ensure the sustainability of the university.

Before the era of Public Universities as Legal Entities (PTNBH), state universities generally did not think too much about this because all costs were borne by the state through the State Budget (APBN) or Regional Budget (APBD). After the PTNBH regulations were implemented, the behaviour of PTN became no different from PTS in the context of recruiting new students to achieve the determined student body targets.

Third, performance. With a collective mindset that students ‘come to’ the educational institution and the sustainability of the university is determined by the student body, it is understandable if higher education in Indonesia today is very urban-biased (urban bias education). There are almost no major universities located in villages. If there are, the village will soon turn into a city as a multiplier effect of the university’s presence.

Almost no one wants to build universities in remote areas. As a result, higher education becomes increasingly difficult to reach and be reached by society, especially marginal groups. Urban bias is also shown by choices of activities after graduation. Most choose cities as places to work. Only a few want to return to their home regions. As a result, the home regions that send students remain underdeveloped even though their children have been sent far away to study. The multiplier effect is almost invisible.

The government is not unaware of this situation. That is why distance education policies (PJJ) then emerged. Universitas Terbuka (UT) was founded in 1984 based on this policy. For years, UT has developed distance higher education with the concept of an educational institution that ‘approaches’ students.

To date, UT has produced nearly 3 million graduates and around 800,000 active students recorded. However, relying on UT alone is not enough to reach relatively hard-to-access communities and then boost the higher education GER. The PJJ concept is also relatively not much favoured by higher education providers.

The Covid-19 pandemic then became the icebreaker. Fundamental changes due to the pandemic have given birth to a new culture based on online activities, including in education. After nearly 40 years of UT operating alone, at least three PJJ universities were established in 2020-2021, namely Asia Cyber University (Unsia), Indonesian Cita Insan University (UICI), and Muhammadiyah Cyber University (SiberMU).

The three develop different concepts but with the same spirit, namely providing flexibility for students to study from anywhere with online-based technology. Some offline-based universities have also opened PJJ study programmes. With this concept, the access problem should be resolved because with online-based PJJ, the educational institution is essentially ‘approaching’ students wherever they are.

Nevertheless, in terms of numbers, the addition of three PJJ universities has not changed the structure. Nor has it significantly increased the number of students/learners. This can be understood as part of the literacy stage in the transformation process.

In this process, society is just beginning to understand the 5W1H of distance education. Flexibility becomes the key word that makes them want to know more. Acceleration efforts are needed through consistent and persistent socialisation so that the literacy stage can be completed more quickly. For education providers, this stage is also needed to change the urban-biased education paradigm into education that impacts the regions where students are located.

For that, conventional PTN and PTS can prepare to take opportunities from the market potential.