Concerns Over Uzbek University Fee Hike

A 30 per cent increase in university tuition fees in Uzbekistan will leave many students struggling, NBCentral Asia observers say.



The rise, which comes into force at the beginning of the new academic year on September 1, was announced by the education ministry. Tuition fees at the University of World Economics and Diplomacy will rise to 800 US dollars a year, while the Ulughbek National University will charge an average of 900 dollars a year.



There are around 60 universities in Uzbekistan with 300,000 places, 70 per cent of which are fee-paying, and the rest funded by state grants.



Young people have few opportunities to pay their own way because jobs are so scarce, and most students depend on their parents financially.



Jamila, 43, is a mother of four who earns a living by trading at the market, and says her family has to scrape and save in order for her two older sons to go to university. She and her husband earn a total of 300 dollars a month and put 40 dollars aside to pay for their fees, which total 1,100 dollars a year.



Now that fees have been raised, the family will have to cut down even more.



“I am worried about September, when we’ll have to pay more,” said Jamila. “Our eldest son may have to work at the market with us.”



Murod, a father of two in Tashkent, fears that university will soon be only for wealthy families, since it is becoming increasingly hard for ordinary people to afford the cost of studying.



Murod works in the private sector and earns 180 dollars a month, quite a lot for Uzbekistan, but he will have to look at extra ways of earning money to pay for his children’s education. They are studying economics and law at Tashkent university.



“I have rented out an apartment and used this money to pay for my sons’ studies”, says Murod. “Now I am probably going to have to borrow money.”



Tuition fees at Uzbek universities have risen several times in recent years. Last year, fees were raised 50 per cent, and in previous years they increased by an average of 20 per cent a years.



(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)