ITB Students Offered Lecture Pay Using Loans, Anies: Sad

Illustration (Special)

Presidential candidate number 1, Anies Baswedan admitted that he was sad with the noise of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) students offered by the campus to pay single tuition fees (UKT) with an online loan scheme. "Education funds must be affordable by all, it's sad to hear that a college person has to borrow online to pay for his tuition. Right, no?" said Anies while campaigning at the Kalisoga Padepokan, Brebes, Central Java, Tuesday, January 30. According to Anies, ITB's policy is the fact that the opportunity to get education in Indonesia is not evenly distributed to all circles. The former governor of DKI Jakarta also claimed that he and the vice presidential candidate Muhaimin Iskandar would seek this equalization. "The state must be back present. We are committed to being present again so that our education can be accessed by anyone, so that children from parents who are no one can become someone in the future," he explained. ITB is becoming a hot topic of conversation on social media because hundreds of students are in arrears in paying for studies. This issue is getting warmer and more discussed because the ITB rectorate offers a tuition payment scheme through loans. It is known that ITB has been working with the Danacita loan platform since 2023.

The news of ITB working with pinjol for tuition payments was first revealed by the account X @ITBFess. The tweet immediately drew negative reactions. ITB is even called inhumane because it tells students not to be able to use loans to pay for colleges.