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View all search resultsAnalysis: Free education, but at what cost?
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Stock illustration of rising university costs ( Shutterstock/File)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto wants Indonesians to enjoy free education from kindergarten through university. Few would dispute the objective of making education more accessible. The harder question is how the government will pay for it. The state has yet to fully fund a Constitutional Court order to extend free compulsory basic education to private schools, even as Prabowo adds free university tuition to a budget already carrying increasingly expensive signature programs.
Prabowo reaffirmed his commitment at a limited cabinet meeting at the State Palace on Sept. 23, calling for free education at state institutions from kindergarten through university. The proposal followed his statement five days earlier that education at state schools and universities should be free, with funding potentially coming from money recovered from corruption.
At the school level, however, much of that promise already exists. Basic and Secondary Education Minister Abdul Mu'ti has said that state schools from kindergarten through senior high school are effectively free through the School Operational Assistance (BOS) program, complemented by the Smart Indonesia Program (PIP) for students from poorer families.
The more pressing unfinished obligation lies elsewhere.
In May 2025, the Constitutional Court ruled that limiting free compulsory basic education to public schools created unequal access because limited capacity at public schools forces some children to attend private schools. It ordered the government and regional administrations to guarantee compulsory basic education without charging fees at both public and private, or community-run, schools.
More than a year later, that ruling has yet to be fully implemented. The estimated cost is around Rp 181 trillion (US$10.3 billion), while roughly Rp 71 trillion has been approved for 2026, requiring implementation to be phased according to the government's fiscal capacity.
Before completing that obligation, however, Prabowo is ordering another, potentially larger commitment: making tuition free at state universities.
