Some
universities have announced increases in tuition fees for the 2011 academic
year. The costs of learning have become too expensive in Vietnam.

While state
owned schools have to keep the tuitions unchanged despite the high inflation
rate, some non-state schools, especially the ones who have joint training
programmes with foreign partners, have raised the tuitions for the 2011 academic
year by tens of millions dong. In fact, the tuitions remain the same if
calculating in dollar. However, students have to spend more money on learning
when they pay in Vietnam
dong. The dong has been devaluated sharply by 9.3 percent in a decision by the
State Bank of Vietnam
in early February.

Ignoring MOET’s regulations, schools
following rules of their own

In 2010,
the Ministry of Education and Training released a document prohibiting
universities to collect tuition fees in dollars. However, schools have ignored
the regulation. They continue collecting tuitions in dollars, reasoning that
they have to pay the foreign partners in dollars. As a result, when the dollar
price increases, the tuitions also increase accordingly.

Some other
schools do not collect tuition fees in dollars, but they always calculate the
tuition fees in dollars. This means that when the dollar price increases,
students have to pay additional sums of money in dong. Though the tuition
levels do not change in dollars, the tuition levels in dong increase sharply.

Dai Doan
Ket newspaper reported that Vietnamese students are learning at Vietnamese
schools, but they have to pay tuitions in foreign currencies as if they are at
foreign schools.

In
principle, schools must set tuition levels in Vietnam
dong and collect tuitions in Vietnam
dong. In Vietnamese territory, only Vietnam dong can be used for
transactions. However, the regulation has never been respected.

The
International Cooperation Training Faculty under the Hanoi Industry
University in January
2010 was discovered as forcing students to pay more money. On entrance,
students were asked to pay 470 dollars to follow a study branch, but they then
were forced to pay 50 dollars more due to the “price slippage”. Students had to
“clench their teeth and pay money”, or they had to give up studying.

In fact,
the thing is not a surprise to anyone because this has been applied by many
schools which have joint training programmes with foreign partners.

A question
has been raised that why the schools which violate the regulations on foreign
currency management, still can exist and provide training services. Director of
the Planning and Finance Department under MOET Dang Van Ngu said that in case
schools have to set tuitions in dollars, they must convert the tuition levels
into Vietnam dong and
announce the tuition levels in Vietnam
dong at the beginning of school years. Schools must not change the tuition
levels quoted in Vietnam
dong during the school years, even if the dollar price fluctuates. However, it
seems that MOET has never verified the implementation of the regulation.

In order to
attract students, schools should not raise tuitions

Tran Huu
Nghi, President of the Hai
Phong People
Founded University,
said that universities now tend to offer many preferences to attract students.
Therefore, Nghi does not think raising tuitions would be a good solution for
now. His school has announced that it will offer the full or 80 percent
scholarships to students for four years of studying at the school, depending on
the scores students get from the university entrance exams.

Meanwhile,
the Huu Nghi Technology and Management
University has decided
that in 2011, it will collect the tuitions which are just equal to 80 percent
of the last year’s levels.

Other
non-state schools in the north have also said they will not raise tuitions this
year, despite the price increases, in order to attract excellent but poor
students.

Meanwhile,
the schools in the south plan relatively high tuitions for this year. Van Lang
University, for example, plans to raise the tuitions to 8-14 million dong a
year. The Saigon International University
plans to collect 120 million dong for the training programme in English. The Hung Vuong University in HCM City
plans to increase the tuition by four million dong per student per year. The Tan Tao University will collect 3000 dollars, while Hong Bang
University will reap nine
million dong.

C. V