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.
Unlike private colleges and universities in the US, our private institutions of higher education have never considered a purely market-oriented approach toward education. Instead of using quality facilities and high caliber faculty to attract students who are willing to pay expensive tuition, Taiwan's all depend on government subsidies. The ironic aspect of this system is that the Ministry of Education actually has little authority over these institutions.
If it is too difficult to rectify the financial condition of these institutions, the government can at least try to protect the students attending them. When these colleges cannot provide enough dorms on campus and safe housing off campus, the Ministry of Education should have the courage to refuse requests to increase enrollment.
The government's first mistake was allowing the proliferation of colleges and universities. It committed another error when it provided very little attention and supervision. If no effective action is taken now, we can expect an even more pressing financial crisis and deteriorating quality of education among these private colleges. Good intentions for more educational opportunities may end up hurting not just the quality of -- but also people's faith in -- our own educational system. Are you going to do something, Minister Tseng?
Yen Chen-shen is a Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University.
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