Children go to college, parents are 'disappointed'

TP - Just entering her first year of study, Chu Thi Xuan, from Hanoi Medical University, is worried about the long journey ahead of her to study Medicine (General Practitioner). Her family is a near-poor household in a commune of Quynh Luu district, Nghe An. Xuan's parents' income depends on a small amount of land and the weather.

TP - Just entering her first year of study, Chu Thi Xuan, Hanoi Medical University, is worried about the long journey ahead of her to study Medicine (General Practitioner). Her family is a near-poor household in a commune of Quynh Luu district, Nghe An . Xuan's parents' income depends on a small amount of land and the weather.

Her parents are also old and have unstable incomes. After going to Hanoi to study, Xuan has found a part-time job. What she worries about is that next year, medical students will start clinical training at the hospital, and there will be no time for part-time work. Tuition fees for medical courses are getting higher and higher. How will her family and herself manage to afford 6 years of university and the specialized training years?

Before they can celebrate being admitted to university, students are already worried about rising tuition fees. Photo: NGHIEM HUE

It's the end of December, and Ms. Tran Huong Dung in Y Yen, Nam Dinh, cannot hide her worry because the deadline for paying the new quarter's rent is approaching. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the commune's wooden products, such as worship items and other handicrafts, have no more outlets, businesses and households have also gradually reduced production, and manual workers like Ms. Dung, who do sandpaper work (using a special type of paper to smooth the wood surface), are unemployed.

Previously, her daily wage was 100,000 VND. Each month, excluding personal work, she received a salary of 24-25 working days, equivalent to 2.4-2.5 million VND. Her husband, Dinh Xuan Dung, is a carpenter, so his daily wage is higher. The couple's income can be considered stable in the countryside. But after the pandemic, they lost their jobs, their children went to university, and difficulties piled on top of difficulties.

He had to apply for a job as a security guard for a garment company in town while she worked as a maid in Hanoi. Her income was only enough for the two of them to cover food, accommodation, and transportation. He sent tuition fees twice a year from his hometown. The 10-month tuition fee for his child accounted for 80% of his annual salary as a security guard. They struggled to make ends meet because they had a child in 10th grade.

With current tuition fees, experts say that even families living in Hanoi who are civil servants or ordinary teachers will have difficulty sending their children to university.

University tuition fees are applied according to Decree 81 and Decree 97 amending and supplementing Decree 81 on the mechanism for collecting and managing tuition fees for educational institutions in the national education system and policies on tuition exemption and reduction, support for learning costs; and service prices in the field of education and training.

According to this decree, the tuition fee ceiling applied to public universities that are not self-sufficient in regular expenditure (not yet autonomous) for the 2025-2026 school year will have 7 levels according to 7 groups of majors. Of which, the lowest is 15.2 million VND/year and the highest is 31.1 million VND/10-month school year. This fee increases by 1.7-3.5 million VND/school year compared to the 2024-2025 school year depending on the group of majors.

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Source: https://tienphong.vn/con-hoc-dai-hoc-bo-me-meo-mat-post1705116.tpo