SUPERFICIAL STRATEGY?
Last month, the Indonesian government reversed a plan proposed in January to raise tuition at state schools. Education minister Nadiem Anwar Makarim said fees would not be increased in the coming 2024 to 2025 academic year, following outcry from students across the country.
Rules at public universities state that fees must be set based on a government benchmark and determined through means-testing, ensuring students from the least affluent families pay the lowest rates.
The same rules do not apply to private institutions, according to Angga, which means there is a higher barrier of entry for financially needy students.
“A lot of us academics see [influencer scholarships] as a shallow or superficial strategy by private universities to attract students because, in Indonesia, private schools struggle to get applicants and most students want to attend state universities, which are considered more prestigious and are often more affordable.”
The influencer scholarships could also function as a tool for “free marketing” to bring more visibility to these private schools, Angga said.
“These students who have a large social media following can share positive stories about the school that they are attending and encourage their followers to also attend the same school,” he said.
But students who are interested in fields such as marketing, or who see being an influencer as a “side gig”, could take advantage of such scholarships to pursue their academic goals, Angga noted.
Last year, teenage influencer Satria Rizki Safiri, who has more than 200,000 followers on TikTok, received a scholarship worth 66 million Indonesian rupiah (US$4,000) from Telkom Purwokerto Institute of Technology in Purwokerto, Central Java, to study logistics engineering.
“I think on one hand, it shows these students have creativity and confidence. But confidence is not always the same as competence, especially if these students are accepted into competitive degrees,” Angga said.
“Perhaps these universities should prioritise providing scholarships to students who are financially needy or come from low-income backgrounds, because those students are the ones who might really need it.”
This article was first published on SCMP.
