On October 15, the internet was abuzz with news that Thu Dau Mot University (a public school under the People's Committee of Binh Duong province) had incorrectly collected tuition fees from students amounting to 37 billion VND.
The collection of tuition fees not in accordance with the regulations of Thu Dau Mot University occurred in the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years.
The school has collected higher tuition fees than the prescribed level for regular university programs, university programs using continuing education methods, master's and doctoral training programs.
The collection was about 1.5 times higher than the prescribed level and the total amount of money found to be wrongly collected was about 37 billion VND. The collection of tuition fees higher than the prescribed level was discovered when the State Audit conducted a re-audit of the revenues and expenditures of units and agencies in Binh Duong.
The State Audit later also issued an official dispatch requesting Thu Dau Mot University to refund to students (in case of failure to refund, it must be paid to the budget) the tuition fees collected in excess of the prescribed level.
On the afternoon of October 15, speaking with reporters, Dr. Doan Ngoc Xuan - Principal of Thu Dau Mot University, confirmed the above information. Currently, the entire amount of excess revenue has been paid to the budget by the school in accordance with the recommendation of the State Audit.
Regarding the excess money collected from students, why not return it to students or notify students before submitting it to the budget, according to Dr. Doan Ngoc Xuan, at the time of the incident he had not returned to work at Thu Dau Mot University.
According to the further explanation of the leader of Thu Dau Mot University, due to the circumstances when the State Audit discovered, there were students who had graduated and some who had not. If we pay the students who have not graduated, how will we handle the rest? Therefore, the school will follow the instructions and recommendations of the State Audit.
Regarding the reason for collecting more than the prescribed fee, according to Thu Dau Mot University, in the period of 2020-2022, the school is not financially autonomous, so the tuition fee is implemented according to the State's regulations, Decree No. 86/2015/ND-CP and Decision No. 28/2016/QD-UBND of Binh Duong province. Accordingly, the fee for the group of social sciences and economics is 327,000 VND/credit and the fee for the group of natural sciences and engineering is 390,000 VND/credit. The school understands that this unit price is the general unit price for theoretical credits with a scale of 40 students/class group or political theory subjects for larger scales.
In addition, the school also designs the training program in the direction of enhancing practice so that learners have professional capacity to meet the requirements of the labor market. In addition, when implementing practice credits, the student class size is smaller (average 10-25 students/class). In addition, there is also equipment consumption...
Based on the above reality, the cost of implementing practical credit teaching is much higher than that of theory, the Board of Directors reported to the School Council to propose that the collection rate for practical credits be 1.5 times higher than that for theory credits. Specifically, the social sciences and economics block is 490,500 VND/credit and the natural sciences and engineering block is 585,000 VND. The above collection rate compared to Decree 86/2015/ND-CP is not suitable.
The school determined the cause was due to a lack of consistency in understanding and applying State regulations in calculating tuition fees for credits.
