Sunday, May 22, 2011

Getting To The University

A nephew of mine is accepted by invitation to Universitas Indonesia. From what I understand it means he had an excellent track record while in High school. He's a smart kid who joined moot UN debates, always in the top 5 in his class, while still had time to entered modeling competitions and won several times.

We were all happy and proud about his invitation as it is one of the most prestigious universities in Indonesia and also alma mater of a lot of us in the family.

However there is a big obstacle on his road to join the university. He needs to pay Rp. 100 millions (almost USD 12000) up front. Sadly his family doesnt have that much money lying around. So now, he needs to study even harder, aces the entrance exam to the University and beats thousands of other students from all over Indonesia.

Education is getting more and more expensive nowadays, and sometimes the quality is not up to par. Unless you are on scholarship, or have a wealthy parents, your chance of getting into prestigious university is pretty slim.

4 comments:

colson said...

Puzzling: accepted by invitation ( by the University) and yet not admitted ( because the same University demands a huge entrance fee).

The system appears to be really unfair ( not unlike the road which our government has outlined for higher education over here - alas, alas).

triesti said...

There are several ways of getting into public universities. Invitation with payment, invitation without payment, entrance exam, and I think another one or two ways which I cant recall at the moment. The more you pay the easier to get admitted.

On top op it, most students from the have-not background dont realize the possibility of applying for a scholarship once they got accepted.

I've met youngsters who were accepted at a prestigious Uni only to back out because of the money problem due to limited knowledge of scholarship availability.

So yes, it's becoming more and more elitist.

Harry Nizam said...

Hi Triesti,

1 to 3 years ago my friends paid a lot much lower fees for their kids to enter UI after passing entrance tests.

triesti said...

@harry yes, the fee is ever increasing and also depends of the program. So, now he's trying to get in by passing the tests.