In recent weeks, private colleges and universities have been in the news. What caught the most attention was the financial difficulties faced by many of these institutions of higher education. Another issue is the protest by students of private colleges over discrepancies in resources and costs of tuition between their schools and public institutions caused by the uneven distribution of financial support by the Ministry of Education. Other reports concern the safety of off-campus life for college students. On the surface, these three issues seem to be unrelated to one another, but they are in fact symptoms related to same problem -- the unchecked proliferation of private institutions of higher education and the lack of accountability in their management.
The proliferation of colleges and universities in Taiwan is a by-product of the liberalization and democratization that has taken place during the last 12 years. When Taiwan opened up its political system and allowed free competition for resources by various interest groups, higher education was one of the closely controlled areas that could not resist such a wave. The number of colleges and universities has more than doubled over the last ten years.
One reason for such a tremendous increase is to satisfy the aspirations of thousands of students who make tremendous efforts to get into college but have been turned away because of the shortage of places. Taiwanese parents are notorious for pushing their children to enter college through the narrow gate of the entrance examination. Elected politicians, reacting to the demands of their constituents as well as seeing the political and economic benefits that a college can bring to a local community, put pressure on the government to ease regulations and to help set up such institutions. They have gone so far as to say it is imperative that each county or city have a national university. Some universities have been established as a result of such pressure. In addition, the Ministry of Education has encouraged junior colleges to upgrade and more public and private universities and some senior colleges have been created in this way.
The result of such proliferation is that the proportion of students passing the college entrance exam has risen from around 25 percent to above 60 percent in recent years. Taiwan's parents, however, are among the pickest in the world and some of the new private schools that have yet to establish solid academic reputations find it difficult to fill all their vacancies. Some students, for financial reasons, choose to re-take the entrance exam to try to get into public universities because they cannot afford the tuition costs of private ones. In short, as the acceptance rate rose, the enrollment rate began to drop. Some of the private schools that rely heavily on tuition income have been hit with financial difficulties as a result of lower than expected levels of enrollment.
The shortfall in tuition income is one reason many private colleges have been hit with financial problems. Another reason is that many of the board members of these schools are not seriously interested in education. Some of them have actually taken advantage of being on the board to try to make financial gains, often irresponsibly investing money collected from tuition fees. When the investment failed to generate expected income or even suffered losses, financial difficulties arose. Others, who may be more interested in land speculation than education, surely do not wish to invest in a school that should be their prime responsibility.
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