Public university tuition will increase nearly 5 times?

The Ministry of Education and Training is submitting to the Government a draft Decree on the autonomy mechanism applicable to public higher education institutions.

Students complete admission procedures at a university in 2017. Photo: Ngoc Duong

According to this draft, the autonomy mechanism will apply to all public university education institutions (except excellent universities and the political school system).

There are expected to be different tuition fees depending on the type of financial autonomy. In particular, for schools that cover their own regular and investment expenses, they have the right to decide on tuition fees based on the principle of cost recovery and reasonable accumulation.

Notably, for schools that are self-funded, the tuition fees students are expected to pay will be equivalent to the tuition fees of schools that have had the Government approve the Pilot Project to innovate the operating mechanism. Specifically, in the 2020-2021 school year, the monthly tuition fee will be from 2.05 - 5.05 million VND/student (depending on the training group). Calculated by school year (10 months), it will be equivalent to 20.5 - 50.5 million VND/student.

This tuition fee is also applied to self-financed schools that cover a portion of their regular expenses, with the collection level implemented according to the roadmap to fully cover training costs.

Thus, compared to the tuition fees for non-autonomous schools at the same time in the 2020-2021 school year, the tuition fees for autonomous schools are 2 to 3.5 times higher (non-autonomous schools will collect 9.8 - 14.3 million VND/school year). Compared to the current tuition fees for non-autonomous public universities (7.4 - 10.7 million VND/school year 2017-2018), the above tuition fees will increase by 2.8 to 4.7 times.

With schools being able to decide on their own fees to fully cover their regular and investment expenses, tuition fees can be higher.

Before this draft, leaders of several public universities expressed their support and believed that this was the way to improve the quality of training. However, with the increase in tuition fees across the board when being autonomous, many people are concerned that this will be a tuition burden for students from difficult circumstances...

Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Van Thu, Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport, said: “There will be a situation where students have to drop out of school due to high tuition fees when implementing autonomy en masse. This is also what the school is concerned about, so it has not implemented the pilot autonomy project up to this point.”

However, Mr. Thu believes that there are still two positive directions in this situation. Because at the same time as increasing tuition fees, schools must also increase the scholarship fund for students by 2-3 times compared to the present. Good students with difficulties will receive more scholarships along with the study loan policy.

Similarly, Dr. Pham Tan Ha, Vice Principal of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, said: “When tuition fees increase, students are forced to carefully consider their choice of school and major so that they can work and earn money after graduation to make up for their previous investment. Increasing tuition fees helps schools have money to invest in learning conditions and improve training quality, which will have a negative impact on students.”

According to TNO