VietNamNet Bridge – Postgraduates complain that it is getting more and more costly to study for master degrees. It is not because of the high tuitions, but of the under-the-table money they have to pay to lecturers.

The financial burden on students

Han, a postgraduate at an economics school in HCM City, said while the official expenses are “affordable,” extra fees are overly high.

When the training course began, the monitor gathered the members of the class and requested them to contribute money to the class’ fund which would be disbursed for “a lot of expense items” – photocopying documents for the study, receiving guests, maintaining and leasing domain name for the class’ forum, buying gifts for teachers on important occasions.

Han said the members of the other class have contributed money to buy a scanner worth $50 and some other teaching aids to help upgrade the teaching and learning capability. “The sums of money they have to contribute to the class’ fund monthly are higher than ours,” Han said, adding that she has to pay VND500,000 every month to the fund.

The “leaders” of a class at the Hanoi National Economics University have even released a “regulation” on how to use the class’ fund. The money would be spent on regular activities of the class, including the daily drinks for lecturers, document copying, extracurricular activities, meetings.

The regulation clearly “stipulates” that these are just the regular expense items, while the class members would have to pay more money for unexpected activities.

The costs for exam pass

M, a postgraduate, wrote on Facebook that she feels very satisfactory about the training course she is following.

“The lecturers are very nice. We don’t have to pay much to lecturers to be able to pass the exams,” she wrote.

“In general, we gave to every lecturer an envelope with VND1 million inside to say thanks to him, when the subject learning finishes,” she added.

Also according to M, when nearly finishing the training course, she has to contribute some VND1.5 million to the class’ fund only, a “very reasonable price.”

M’s friends have immediately expressed their surprise about the low price. A postgraduate said he could not believe that there are the lecturers who receive only VND1 million for a training course.

The postgraduate, who is now following a training course at a trade school, estimated that it costs some VND22 million to follow a training course and obtain master degree.

HT, a banking postgraduate, said that the class members would “come to see the lecturers” before the exam days. The purpose of the meetings is to give “envelopes” with money inside to the lecturers. The “envelopes” would help make the lecturers feel happy and give learners high marks at the exams.

“Each of us contributes VND500,000. There are 40 learners in our class,” HT said. “This means the lecturers would pocket VND20 million for every learning subject.”

However, HT complained that even though lecturers receive “envelopes,” some learners still fail the exams and have to take exams again.

LS, a postgraduate in another class, believes that some learners fail the exams maybe because of the modest sums of money in the envelopes. “Since we are very generous, we always pass the exams,” he said.

Chi Mai