UGM reveals new admission scheme
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University (UGM) plans to introduce a new admission scheme for wealthy students this academic year, with fees reaching over Rp 80 million (US$8,888), in a bid to make the cross-subsidy system work better, a university official said on Sunday.
Under the scheme, called Scholastic Aptitude Selection, the new students accepted through the scheme would be required to pay higher admission fees compared to those accepted through the university's regular self-designed entrance tests as well as those accepted through the national selection tests.
UGM's deputy rector Sudjarwadi, who is in charge of the university's academic affairs, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday the new scheme was specially designed to select students of high scholastic aptitude, who are willing to spend more on the admission fees.
"Some of the money (collected through this scheme) will be spent for cross-subsidies," Sudjarwadi said on the sidelines of an official visit to some of the locations in Yogyakarta where the regular written entrance tests for this academic year were held.
As many as 33,320 high school students took part in the written tests held simultaneously on Sunday in nine cities across the country, including Yogyakarta. The other cities were Jakarta, Cirebon, Tangerang, Lampung, Palembang, Pekanbaru, Banjarmasin, and Balikpapan.
Sudjarwadi said the new scheme was designed following a ministerial decree sent to the university earlier this year, which allows universities to decide the proportion of students according to economic status of the students' parents on their own.
The Ministry of Education and Culture has determined that the education unit cost for tertiary education was Rp 18.2 million per year, per student. The students are classified into four different categories.
The first category comprises students who are completely exempted from paying admission or tuition fees; second category students pay below the education unit cost for tertiary education; third category students pay the regular amount; and fourth category students will be asked to pay up to Rp 80 million.
"Those accepted through the Scholastic Aptitude Selection scheme will be classified as fourth category students," Sudjarwadi explained.
He said that with the Scholastic Aptitude Selection, UGM currently has two admission schemes designed for the fourth category students. The other scheme accepted continuing-education students sent by regional governments, regional companies or regional governmental institutions.
For this academic year, the university will take some 7,000 new students, of which 18 percent will be accepted through the national selection test, and the remaining 82 percent through the university's self-designed entrance tests.
Currently, 508 students have been accepted through the Scholastic Aptitude Selection scheme while 63 other students would study at the university as continuing-education students
The lowest admission fee for Scholastic Aptitude Selection is Rp 8 million per student -- for mathematics, chemistry, physics, and statistics study programs, and the highest, at Rp 80 million, is for the school of medicine.
Admission fees for continuing-education students, range from Rp 10 million per student -- for mathematics, chemistry and statistic study programs, while the highest is Rp 100 million for the school of medicine.
The admission fee for students who are accepted through regular and national test schemes are between Rp 5 million and Rp 20 million, except for those who are completely exempted from paying the admission fee.
"The cross subsidy policy so far has proved to be effective in increasing the number of students from economically disadvantaged families to study at UGM," said Sudjarwadi.
He said that 30 percent of the university's approximately 30,000 students come from poor families.
"The main idea (of the cross-subsidy policy) is to increase the access of students from poor families while at the same time increasing the revenue needed to add more facilities at the university," Sudjarwadi said.