Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – A proposed bill to advance the privatization of top universities in the country may lead to classism and conflict, as higher tuition fees will prevent underprivileged students from undergoing higher education.

Education expert Darmaningtyas said tuition fees, especially at state universities, had rocketed since the government passed a regulation in 1999 that declared four top state universities legal entities.

The four are the University of Indonesia (UI), Gadjah Mada University (UGM), the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) and the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).

Since the bill was passed, the government has gradually cut subsidies to the four and has encouraged other universities to raise their own funds.

"The consequence of this liberalization of education is that education is no longer a basic right of every citizen. Rather it is a commodity, which only the haves can afford to buy.

"Education is getting costly," Darmaningtyas said in Jakarta on Tuesday during a discussion on legal entities organized by the Indonesia Corruption Watch.

The bill, which National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo earlier said would change "all state and private universities into corporate-like institutions", is currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives.

Jimmy Paat, an education sociology expert at Jakarta State University, said the essence of the bill was to privatize universities and that the proposal was "full of injustices".

"Many students will be gotten rid of not because of their lack of intelligence, but simply because of economic reasons.

"I believe education has to create fairness, equal opportunities for every one; Now how can we expect fairness from privatization?" Jimmy said.

It costs up to Rp 750 million (approximately US$79,300) to put a student through medical school at UI.

"With such high fees, it is no wonder why the poor cannot afford (tertiary) schooling and why medical treatment has become so costly; The medical students spend too much to graduate," ICW's Ade Irawan said.

Darmaningtyas said the liberalization procedure had caused pro-people universities to commit injustices.

"When I was at UGM, it allocated 18 percent of its seats for students from West Nusa Tenggara, Papua and Maluku so that we could find students from those provinces in every faculty in the university.

"However, they are no longer there now, and I'm suspicious that is a result of the high tuition fees," he said.

He said the fact that underprivileged students from eastern Indonesia could no longer enter top – and therefore costly – universities in Java could potentially trigger a culture of jealously and conflict for future generations.

"They can never compete in the job market even on their own home soil. Mining companies in Papua, for example, prefer graduates of UI or ITB to local university graduates," Darmaningtyas said.

"This can trigger jealousy, with top state university graduates deemed as colonizers. If the legal entities bill is finally passed into law, in 10 years we'll see social conflicts and disintegration prompted by jealousy," Darmaningtyas said.