Some universities have announced increases in tuition fees for the 2011 academic year, making costs of learning 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.