SINGAPORE - Tertiary education in Singapore is going to cost more.
On Friday, all three universities, five polytechnics and the Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs) announced their latest round of fee hike, which will be applied to this year's incoming cohort.
As with previous rounds, the hike will be higher for foreigners and Permanent Residents in line with the Government's policy to sharpen differentiation between citizens and foreigners.
University fees have been increased almost yearly since 1991, when the Government announced that it would have more frequent but smaller fee increases rather than a hefty hike every few years.
For polytechnics and ITEs, the latest hike will be the third in five years and the second in consecutive years.
Singaporean undergraduates at National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students will pay either 4 or 6 per cent more - or between $280 and $540 more - depending on their courses. The hike at Singapore Management University (SMU) is slightly lower, at a flat 3 per cent.
At NUS, the highest increases will be for architecture, business, law, music, nursing and pharmacy undergraduates. At NTU, fees for business courses will go up the most.
The five polytechnics will raise their fees by 2 per cent for Singaporean students while at the ITEs, Singaporean students will pay $10 more for their Nitec and Higher Nitec courses.
Pakistani Salman Zaheer, who is studying banking and finance at Nanyang Polytechnic, was unhappy about the higher increase for foreign students. Adding that he might consider going elsewhere to further his studies, he said: "We are already paying much higher (fees) than locals here."
Singaporean Praveen Raj, who is also studying at Nanyang Polytechnic, said he felt that the continual increase could pose a problem for future batches of students.
A family MediaCorp spoke to said they had factored in fee hikes before their son, who is 19, enters university. His parents said they have been saving for his education since he was a year old.
Said the father, Mr Sunny Ong: "If we have problems paying the fees, we can get a bank loan or use CPF. We also hope that our universities can compete globally ... so foreign students will want to study here."
Incoming post-graduate Singaporean students at NUS and NTU will pay 6 per cent more in fees, with the exception of the nursing post-graduate programme. Their fees will increase 3 per cent each year for the remainder of their course duration.
Existing post-graduate NTU and NUS Singaporean students will also see an annual 3 per cent increase for the remaining duration of their respective courses.
For SMU, there will be no change in fees for its research programmes at the Masters and PhD levels.
The tertiary institutions said they will ensure that there are sufficient financial assistance schemes in place so that no student admitted will be denied the opportunity of an education because of financial difficulties.
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