Fees for finals exams unexpectedly raised to 500,000, fines imposed if students pay tuition fees late – students are fed up with the spontaneous and high fees set by universities.

Students of Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University

The notice said that the students of some training courses who failed the final exams last year have to pay the fee of 500,000 to repeat the final exams. Meanwhile, the fee for sitting for the final exams was 300,000 dong only in previous years.

The college stated that this would be the last exam it organised for the said students. If students do not register to sit for the exams, the college will not be responsible for any claims the students make later.

Explaining the sharp increase in the final exam fee, Doan Le Ngoc Phi Lan, who leads the training division of the college, said that the fee was set based on the regulation on internal spending which went into effect on March 1, 2009.

Lan said that the sum of money was set after the college calculated necessary expenses such as goods price increases and increases in pay of lecturers.

Students of T University, a state-owned university, have also complained that the university has introduced many new kinds of fees, including the so-called ‘graduation tuition fee’. Students who write a minor thesis have to pay nearly 1.4 million dong, called the ‘thesis tuition fee’. The fee is nearly three-fold higher if students do a minor thesis in English. And of course, students still have to pay the ‘graduation fee’ when they get a degree. Another state-owned university requires students to pay 800,000 dong to get their degrees.

Binh Duong University states in writing that if students pay tuition fees from 1-10 days late they have to pay a 3 percent fine, while the figure is 5 percent if they are 11-20 days late, 8 percent for 21-30 days late. If they are more than 30 days late, the fine is 10 percent for every month of tardiness.

VietNamNet/TT