How Much Is The MBG Fund Called Sufficient For The Free Lecture Fee Of 288 Thousand Students?

Illustration. Implementation of a free nutritious eating program (Doc. BPMI Setpres)

YOGYAKARTA The realization of the implementation of the free nutritious food program aka MBG has again been highlighted. On social media, netizens are busy criticizing the amount of the budget allocated to make the program a success. One of the viral uploads is MBG funds compared to tuition fees at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).

On Instagram, the @logoslogist account states that the MBG fee per month reaches RP24 trillion. If transferred, the funds can be used to finance 212,000 undergraduates for 40 years at TB. The cost is only around Rp. 21.2 trillion.

"Freening education at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) for 40 years, with the results of more than 212 thousand undergraduate graduates, it only takes IDR 21.2 trillion. This amount is in contrast to spending on the Nutrition Food (MBG) program which reaches IDR 24 trillion every month," wrote the account @logoslogis, quoted by VOI.

So, how much is MBG funds? If transferred, is it true that the MBG budget can be used to free tuition fees for hundreds of thousands of students?

Before his position was replaced by Purbaya Yudhi Sadives, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the MBG program budget would plummet next year.

Funds allocated for MBG are projected to exceed IDR 300 trillion by 2026 or almost double this year's allocation of IDR 171 trillion.

Meanwhile, in the fifth Plenary Meeting of the DPR for the first session of 2025-2026 which was held on September 23, 2025, setting a budget for a free nutritious food program of IDR 335 trillion.

The budget allocation for Prabowo's flagship program comes from three sectors, namely education of IDR 223 trillion (83.4 percent), health IDR 4.7 trillion (9.2 percent), and the economic sector IDR 19.7 trillion (7.4 percent).

The budget allocated for MBG next year will sharply increase from the indicative ceiling of IDR 217.86 trillion.

Even so, the realization of the MBG budget is IDR 13 trillion, starting from January to September 8, 2025 with 22.7 million beneficiaries.

In this regard, Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara said the realization of the budget had only reached 18.3 percent of the ceiling set at IDR 71 trillion so far this year for the program.

"This Free Nutrition Food, as of September 8, has served 22.7 million recipients, served by 7,644 SPPGs (Grizzling Service Unit)," said Suahasil at the August 2025 edition of the KiTa State Budget press conference, Monday, September 22, 2025.

For the distribution of MBG recipients, in Java there were 13.26 million recipients, Sumatra as many as 4.86 million recipients, Kalimantan (1.03 million recipients), Sulawesi (1.7 million recipients), Maluku-Papua (520 recipients), and Bali-Nusa Tenggara have reached 1.37 million beneficiaries of this program.

Previously, it had been mentioned that the budget allocation for the MBG program, which was knocked by the government for 2026, amounted to IDR 335 trillion or IDR 27.9 trillion per month. This figure exceeds the budget projection called netizens on social media, which is 24 trillion per month.

Please note, currently ITB and other state universities in the country use the Singles Lecture Money (UKT) system to set costs per semester.

Based on information compiled by VOI, the average UKT money that must be paid by students every semester is IDR 12.5 million. Thus, a student needs at least IDR 100 million to complete a study for 4 years (8 semesters). This figure does not include the cost of duty, supports life on Rantau land, and if you have to be delayed from studying.

If MBG funds amounting to RP24 trillion per year are diverted to free tuition fees, then these funds can be used to finance 240,000 people for 8 semesters.

Furthermore, if the Rp24 trillion is multiplied by only one year of MBG costs, there will be 288,000 students who can study for free at the best PTN in the country.

That's information about how much MBG funds. Get news updates of other options only on VOI.ID.