Universities desperate for new students

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

A lack of students might cause 53 of the 106 private universities in Yogyakarta go bankrupt this year because they could not afford to meet operational costs.

"In order to survive, a private university should get at least 100 new students (per year). Anything less than that, and the university will not be able to cover operational costs," said head of the Private Universities Association, Sugiyanto.

He said that last year, only 25 percent of 106 private universities did not get enough new students. "This situation might cause dozens of private universities close down," Sugiyanto said.

Deputy rector of Widya Mataram University, Martadani, who is in charge of new student registrations, said the university's five schools and eight study programs could actually accommodate 500 new students but so far, only 100 students had registered.

"In fact, school fees here are not expensive. Every new student only pays Rp 1.7 million (US$178) for a social science program and Rp 1.8 million for science program," Martadani said.

He added that there were three schools -- agricultural technology, industrial technology and sociology -- that were in dire need of students.

A lack of new students was also being experienced by the popular Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University.

The university's spokesperson, Budi, told The Jakarta Post that the university's seven schools and 16 study programs could accommodate 2,500 new students.

"But even after the second registration period recently, newly registered students still number below 2,000 and may force us to start a third registration phase. In previous years, we always got more students than we could accommodate," he said.

Public relations officer of the Indonesian Islamic University, Akhmad Muftizar, said that from the university's nine schools and 23 study programs, some of them were still waiting for more students.

Akhmad said the university had set up special registration line for new students in several schools, such as the civil engineering school and industrial technology school.

Both Budi and Akhmad blamed high education costs that made parents reluctant to send their children on to universities.

"Moreover, many cities now, like Pekalongan and Cirebon, have their own private universities. Thus parents prefer to send their children to study at those universities rather than sending them to another city which would certainly be more costly," he said.

Sugiyanto urged private universities to improve quality and credibility in order to lure more students. The government, he added, should also help by temporarily providing financial assistance so that universities could improve education services.