VietNamNet Bridge
Jan. 11th, 2010

Many students at local universities in the country are complaining that they are being asked to pay tuition fees in the US dollar or in dong at the black market exchange rate.

In a letter sent to online newspaper VietNamNet last month, a student at the Ha Noi University of Industry’s International Cooperation Faculty said their tuition fees had been raised from US$470 for a training course in the beginning of the school year to $520 in early December.

The letter said in the previous year, when the exchange rate stood at VND18,400 a US dollar in the market, students paid VND17,500 for a US dollar as announced by the State Bank of Viet Nam. But now they were being asked to pay fees at VND19,500 per dollar, the current black market rate.

The students’ families had to "move heaven and earth" to cough up the VND11 million ($540) because the school asked them to pay it in just 20 days from the beginning of the course, the letter said.

Tran Van Thanh, deputy chief of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Personnel Department, said no regulations had been issued about collecting tuition fees in US dollars.

Nguyen Van Ngu, head of the Ministry of Education and Training’s Planning and Finance Department, agreed with Thanh, but added some schools could collect tuition fees for the programmes jointly carried out with foreign partners.

However, he also said that if fees are collected in US dollar, they must be calculated at the prevailing official rate.

In addition to the Ha Noi University of Industry, many private universities and foreign language training centres are also collecting fees denominated in US dollars.

For instance, a student at the Friendship University of Technology and Management has to pay tuition fees of nearly VND9 million per month. To attain a degree at the FPT University’s IT Department, a student has to pay $8,800 for the 4-year course.

The situation may change next school year (2010-11) with the Ministry of Education and Training announcing last Saturday that universities and colleges must publicise monthly or annual tuition fees and all these must be mentioned in Vietnamese dong.