All six local
universities here will be raising their tuition fees for the new
academic year, which begins in August.
Some also
intend to bump up scholarships and financial aid.
Tuition fees
for the new intake of Singapore citizens will go up by $50 a year -
or about 0.4 per cent to 0.6 per cent - for the bulk of
undergraduate programmes at four universities, according to the
Ministry of Education (MOE).
These are the
National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological
University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU) and
Singapore University of Social Sciences.
At the
Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), fees for
Singapore citizens will increase by $150, or 1 per cent, a
year.
The Sunday
Times understands that the Singapore Institute of Technology will
also raise its fees, and details will be released later.
The universities
review their fees each academic year, taking into account factors
such as rising costs due to inflation and enhancements to the
quality of teaching, said the ministry.
Permanent
residents and international students will have to pay $50 to $350
more for most undergraduate programmes a year. MOE said the
percentage fee increases for them are similar to those for
Singaporeans.
Tuition fees
for most postgraduate programmes will rise by $50 to $500 - or 0.5
per cent to 5 per cent - for Singapore citizens.
The bigger fee
hikes for NUS undergraduates are for the medicine and dentistry
programmes, and programmes at the Yale-NUS College and Yong Siew
Toh Conservatory of Music.
Singapore
citizens who study medicine and dentistry have to pay $28,400 in
tuition fees a year, an increase of $1,000, or 3.6 per cent, from
last year.
Those who
enrol at Yale-NUS College and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music
will have to bear an increase of $500, a rise of between 2.6 per
cent and 3.9 per cent.
Increase in annual
tuition fees for new intake of Singapore citizens for most
undergraduate programmes at NUS, NTU, SMU and Singapore University
of Social Sciences.
Increase in annual
tuition fees for new intake of Singapore citizens for most
undergraduate programmes at SUTD.
Increase in annual tuition fees for
new intake of non-citizens for most undergraduate
programmes.
These fee
increases affect only the new intake. Earlier intakes will pay the
same fees made known to them at the point of admission, said
MOE.
Since 2010,
university fees have largely gone up every year. The fee hikes for
local undergraduates for previous years ranged from 0.6 per cent to
8 per cent.
University
fees are determined by the universities, which are autonomous, in
close consultation with the ministry, an MOE spokesman said.
The
universities review their fees each academic year, taking into
account factors such as rising costs due to inflation and
enhancements to the quality of teaching, said the ministry.
To help
students financially, some of the universities said they have been
increasing the number of scholarships and the amount of financial
aid over the years.
A spokesman
for SMU said its total financial aid available to needy students
this new academic year will amount to nearly $6.2 million, up from
$6 million last year.
Its freshman
can apply for its 255 scholarships, compared with 200 last year.
This means that, on average, one in eight freshmen in the new
intake stands a chance at a scholarship.
NUS senior
deputy president and provost Ho Teck Hua said: "In the new academic
year, NUS will offer an additional 200 bond-free scholarships to
talented and deserving undergraduates, bringing the total number of
NUS scholarships to 430 per year."
SUTD said it
has enhanced the value and coverage of many of its scholarships "to
account for the increase in tuition fees and to provide other
benefits". However, it was unable to provide figures on how much
its support measures have been beefed up.