Did PAP increase tuition fees/decrease funding of Singaporean undergrads to subsidise foreigners? |
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By Philip Ang Government statistics (below) have confirmed that PAP has spent the least on Singaporean undergrads vs other students. From FY2010 to FY2015, an undergrad saw a paltry increase of only $1428 or 7% in government expenditure. (Almost 80% of NUS student enrollment are undergrads.) For a primary school student, government expenditure increased the highest – by $3536 or 53% (highest) over the same period. Worst-hit were ITE students with the lowest increase of only $811 over 5 years!  https://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/singapore-in-figures (pg 25) As for Edwin Tong wannabes, tuition fees increased by $3570 or 44% but the highest dollar increase was $5240 for Dentistry.  PAP justified exorbitant fee increases with BS, eg better students to staff ratio = higher cost. But which top uni in Law has increased cost by 44% over a 5-year period and more than 7% every other year? Since inflation was only a fraction of the fee increase, were there cost overruns, eg management paying themselves top dollar just like PAP politicians? As if increasing tuition fees disproportionately higher than government funding wasn’t bad enough, PAP has decided to stick more spurs into the hides of undergrads: reduce funding while increasing tuition fees. Except for Dentistry, Medicine and Law, most courses saw an increase of about only $300 since AY2014. But smiling parents and student should wipe the smile off their faces because …  …PAP has been reducing expenditure per undergrad while increasing tuition fees! 😦  www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/data/budget_2017/.../27%20MOE%202017.pdf (pg 75) Was inflation negative since FY2015?
Were the number of undergrads drastically reduced?
Or staff ratio took a beating? It appears costs could be increased or decreased at PAP’s whim, never mind what the people think. Did PAP increase Singaporean undergrad tuition fees in order to subsidise foreigners at public universities? Or maybe reduce government funding for the same reason? Would like to ask a former Education Minister Teo Chee Hean (1997 to 2003) what he thinks about this.  This post was first published over at likedatosocanmeh on 12 May 2017. It is reproduced with permission. |
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