TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsHigher education dilemma: Between degrees and labor market
Entering university is not an act of choice, but a negotiation with the system since the very beginning
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Ready to launch: A student of a private university poses in a graduation cap and gown a cap on Oct. 6, 2025, during a professional photo shoot at Banteng Square Park in Central Jakarta.
(AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
F
or many Indonesians, entering higher education is not merely an intellectual decision; it is a strategy for survival. In an increasingly competitive and often unequal labor market, higher education has long been positioned as a pathway to a more stable life. Families invest not only financially but also emotionally, placing their hopes on the belief that a university degree will open access to better employment opportunities.
In this sense, higher education carries an implicit promise, one that is rarely stated but widely believed: that it will improve an individual’s chances of surviving and succeeding in the workforce. Yet, this promise is becoming harder to fulfill. Many graduates, including high-achieving ones, struggle to secure decent jobs aligned with their fields of study.
Indonesia’s higher education system has expanded rapidly, with more than 4,000 institutions producing graduates in large numbers each year. However, this expansion has not been matched by the labor market’s capacity to absorb them. As of February 2025, more than 7 million Indonesians remain unemployed, including over 1 million university graduates. This is not merely an individual failure but a reflection of a structural disconnect between education and employment.
This disconnect is the primary driver behind the government’s recent initiatives to evaluate and potentially close "unproductive" study programs, those with low employability rates or minimal industry relevance. While aimed at streamlining the system, such moves underscore the growing tension between the intellectual mission of the university and the pragmatic demands of the economy.
This gap begins even before students enter university. In Indonesia’s highly competitive higher education system, particularly in public universities, admission often becomes the primary objective. As a result, many prospective students choose their fields of study based not on genuine interest or long-term relevance, but on their chances of being accepted. What appears to be a personal choice is, in fact, shaped by structural constraints.
For many Indonesians, access to private higher education remains financially out of reach. Economic limitations force families to make significant sacrifices, such as saving for years, cutting essential expenses, or taking on debt simply to ensure that their children can pursue higher education. In this context, public universities are not merely a matter of academic preference or prestige; they are often the only economically viable option.
Choosing less competitive majors to secure admission is, therefore, a rational strategy. However, such decisions carry long-term consequences that are often overlooked. When fields of study lack strong relevance to labor market demands, graduates may struggle to translate their knowledge into viable employment opportunities.
