LookAtVietnam – If the state management agencies continue to relax controls over the tuition collection by non-state universities, poor students will never escape from the heavy burden they must bear, experts say.

Super profit?

Compared to tuition costs at state universities, the tuition charged by private universities prove to be from 2.5 to 50 times higher.

In fact, students not only have to pay tuitions, but also pay for many additional items. For example, the students of Marketing University have to pay a laboratory fee of 5,000 dong per period and 50,000 dong for for student ID cards. The school’s 4th year students have to pay one million dong for review of their final exams.

Though Universities announce yearly and semestral tuition levels. because most have shifted to a credit-hour system, they charge tuition based on the number of periods. Previously, students of Hung Vuong University had to pay tuitions per semester (VND 3.5 million per semester), but now they have to pay VND 7,500 per hour of class.

As a result of the new scheme of tuition collection, the actual tuition in several fields of study has increased. For example, agro-industry students must pay to pay VND 3,712,500 for 495 class hours, while students of tourism services must pay VND 3,562,500 for 475 class hours.

Notwithstanding its sky-high tuition level, the HCM City Economics & Finance University was able to enroll 200 students in the first year of its operation. The university collected VND9 billion in tuition, equal to the tuition of 1,500 students at an ordinary university (VND 6 million on average).

“Education is bringing super profits to investors,” said a professor who studied university education to Lao Dong newspaper reporters during a break in a meeting of the “Educational Thought” Club in HCM City on April 29.

According to the professor, private universities spend less than VND4 million/student/year, which means that their profit per student is about one million dong annually.

Universities need to be audited

According to this professor, education services should not be considered as normal commodities. In his view, the Ministry of Education and Training should make reasonable intervention in the pricing of education services, rather than let Vietnam’s private universities set their tuition levels.

He advocated regular inspection of university fees by the Ministry to ensure transparency.

Many educators have suggested that if universities cannot prove that their material facilities and training quality accord with the tuition levels, the ministry should stop or limit the universities’ enrollment.

Associate Prof Dr Tran Huu Ta, former Dean of the Literature Faculty of the HCM City University of Education, said that it is necessary to audit the financial reports of private universities.

In fact, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has taken some first steps to make the tuition charges more transparent. In 2009, the ministry, for the first time, required private universities to declare their tuition levels in its 2009-2010 handbook, “Things You Should Know When Applying to University or Junior College.’ The information helps considerably students in deciding where they should seek to register.

MOET is also preparing rules which if approved will require universities to make public the tuition and other charges they expect to collect from students for training courses. This will help trainees to decide if they are financially capable of following the courses.

VietNamNet/NLD