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ITB under fire over online lending options for tuition fees
Students complain about the high-interest online lending option to pay for their overdue tuition fees, with some blaming the government's hands-off approach to state universities for higher education's commercialization.
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The Bandung Institute of Technology's (ITB) campus grounds in Bandung, West Java, are seen in this undated photo. (Courtesy of ITB/-)
S
tate university the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) has been in the spotlight the past week for offering hundreds of students with their tuition fees in arrears a payment plan facilitated by an online lending platform.
More than 200 enrolled students were at risk of having to stop their studies this semester as they were unable to pay off their tuition on time.
One of them was Gideon, not his real name, a 19-year-old fifth-semester student at the university’s School of Business and Management (SBM ITB). He owed ITB Rp 26 million (US$1,650) in unpaid tuition, as he had been failing to pay the fees in full since his second semester.
Every student is assigned a different amount of single tuition fee (UKT) according to their parents’ income. For Gideon, he must pay Rp 17.5 million per semester.
The university told me that I couldn’t register for next semester’s classes unless I paid Rp 10.5 million to cover some of my debts,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
But the amount was hard for Gideon and his mother, a single parent with four children whose livelihood comes from a small online clothing business. His tuition was mainly paid by his grandparents who owned a small towing company, but the business was struck hard during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read also: Govt offers state universities incentive to be more financially independent
