Why increase varsity fees?
May 02, 2004
Makerere University Business School and Christian University Mukono recently raised dust when they increased fees for their programmes. Are universities becoming business projects? <b>Rev. Stephen Noll</b> analyses.
Makerere University Business School and Christian University Mukono recently raised dust when they increased fees for their programmes. Are universities becoming business projects? Rev. Stephen Noll analyses.
The recent announcement of a fee increase at Uganda Christian University and the resulting protest raises an important question: why are university fees always rising?
There are fairly straightforward answers to this question.
University education in Uganda and throughout the world has been ‘massified.’
The old elitist model by which the British trained and fully funded 600 students at Makerere has been replaced by expectations that a sizeable portion of the population must be educated for the demands of the global marketplace. UPE has gone upscale!
University education is costly. Some people think they can simply throw up a classroom block, insert an instructor and found a new university. Such a ‘Potemkin University’ is a mere façade and its certificates are worthless.
Educating students at the highest level requires highly credentialed academic staff, extensive library facilities and well-equipped laboratories, all linked with modern internet and communications technology.
Governments can no longer afford to subsidise mass higher education. Even in wealthy countries like Britain and America, government universities are increasingly charging private fees.
Indeed in a recent issue of The Economist, it was argued that shifting funding to the private sector is the only way forward to maintain a high quality system.
Higher education in Africa is grossly underfunded. Students in the USA pay five to ten times the fees that are collected in Uganda.
This is a result of the poverty gap between Africa and the West, but it also explains why no African university is ranked in the top 50 world-class universities.
While this gap cannot be closed by wishing, it does mean that families in developing countries must make at least proportionate financial sacrifices that families make in the West.
Universities in Uganda must either raise fees or go out of business. The National Council for Higher Education has begun to set criteria for university licencing.
As a result, universities-in-name-only are going out of business. Other institutions are stretching to raise their budgets to meet the ‘unit costs’ of education, and that means higher fees.
University fees will be going up in Uganda every year for the foreseeable future. This is the cold, hard fact which Ugandan families must accept and plan for.
Is there anything students and families can do to halt the trend? No, not really. But there are ways in which they can avert the dire consequences of failing to meet fees. Families must plan ahead.
Difficult though it is in a poor nation already awash in school fees, families need to set aside savings in advance for their children’s university education.
Students and their families must find ways to pay on time.
Think ‘beginning of the semester’ rather than ‘bitter end.’ The time may come when the Government or the private sector will make loans available for university fees, but such a system will only work when recipients can be counted on to repay on time.
Is there anything the Government can do to help? The Government may of course continue to subsidise a few ‘brightest and best’ to places in universities, but even those subsidies will become increasingly partial, e.g., tuition only.
The best thing the Government can do is to encourage the growth of universities by offering private incentives.
Government should remove the ‘shadow VAT’ on students by exempting universities from tax on capital costs. Contrary to popular myth, most if not all licenced universities in Uganda are non-profit-making. Because they must balance their budget each year, they have no choice but to pass on VAT payments to students by raising fees. By removing the shadow VAT, Government would make it easier for universities to invest in the high cost of infrastructure needed to become a world-class institution.
Government should provide tax incentives for private philanthropy to universities as public service institutions.
The success of higher education in the USA is due in large part to the huge endowments which universities build up from private donations — from alumni and other benefactors and those donations are stimulated by tax incentives.
True, Uganda has a small base for such philanthropy, but it is necessary right now to begin establishing a ‘culture of philanthropy’ that extends beyond the kinship group.
Government can spur this culture by making donations to universities tax-exempt.
None of these solutions is pain free. But the alternative is worse: that the country fails to develop an educated class of leaders to help it to become self-reliant, stable and productive for the future.
The recent announcement of a fee increase at Uganda Christian University and the resulting protest raises an important question: why are university fees always rising?
There are fairly straightforward answers to this question.
University education in Uganda and throughout the world has been ‘massified.’
The old elitist model by which the British trained and fully funded 600 students at Makerere has been replaced by expectations that a sizeable portion of the population must be educated for the demands of the global marketplace. UPE has gone upscale!
University education is costly. Some people think they can simply throw up a classroom block, insert an instructor and found a new university. Such a ‘Potemkin University’ is a mere façade and its certificates are worthless.
Educating students at the highest level requires highly credentialed academic staff, extensive library facilities and well-equipped laboratories, all linked with modern internet and communications technology.
Governments can no longer afford to subsidise mass higher education. Even in wealthy countries like Britain and America, government universities are increasingly charging private fees.
Indeed in a recent issue of The Economist, it was argued that shifting funding to the private sector is the only way forward to maintain a high quality system.
Higher education in Africa is grossly underfunded. Students in the USA pay five to ten times the fees that are collected in Uganda.
This is a result of the poverty gap between Africa and the West, but it also explains why no African university is ranked in the top 50 world-class universities.
While this gap cannot be closed by wishing, it does mean that families in developing countries must make at least proportionate financial sacrifices that families make in the West.
Universities in Uganda must either raise fees or go out of business. The National Council for Higher Education has begun to set criteria for university licencing.
As a result, universities-in-name-only are going out of business. Other institutions are stretching to raise their budgets to meet the ‘unit costs’ of education, and that means higher fees.
University fees will be going up in Uganda every year for the foreseeable future. This is the cold, hard fact which Ugandan families must accept and plan for.
Is there anything students and families can do to halt the trend? No, not really. But there are ways in which they can avert the dire consequences of failing to meet fees. Families must plan ahead.
Difficult though it is in a poor nation already awash in school fees, families need to set aside savings in advance for their children’s university education.
Students and their families must find ways to pay on time.
Think ‘beginning of the semester’ rather than ‘bitter end.’ The time may come when the Government or the private sector will make loans available for university fees, but such a system will only work when recipients can be counted on to repay on time.
Is there anything the Government can do to help? The Government may of course continue to subsidise a few ‘brightest and best’ to places in universities, but even those subsidies will become increasingly partial, e.g., tuition only.
The best thing the Government can do is to encourage the growth of universities by offering private incentives.
Government should remove the ‘shadow VAT’ on students by exempting universities from tax on capital costs. Contrary to popular myth, most if not all licenced universities in Uganda are non-profit-making. Because they must balance their budget each year, they have no choice but to pass on VAT payments to students by raising fees. By removing the shadow VAT, Government would make it easier for universities to invest in the high cost of infrastructure needed to become a world-class institution.
Government should provide tax incentives for private philanthropy to universities as public service institutions.
The success of higher education in the USA is due in large part to the huge endowments which universities build up from private donations — from alumni and other benefactors and those donations are stimulated by tax incentives.
True, Uganda has a small base for such philanthropy, but it is necessary right now to begin establishing a ‘culture of philanthropy’ that extends beyond the kinship group.
Government can spur this culture by making donations to universities tax-exempt.
None of these solutions is pain free. But the alternative is worse: that the country fails to develop an educated class of leaders to help it to become self-reliant, stable and productive for the future.