Today (October 19), the leader of Thu Dau Mot University (Binh Duong) said that this unit is proposing to the competent authorities of Binh Duong province to refund 37 billion VND in tuition fees that were incorrectly collected for students.

This is the amount that the State Audit concluded that Thu Dau Mot University incorrectly collected tuition fees for practice credits from students in the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years.

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Thu Dau Mot University proposes to return 37 billion VND in wrongly collected tuition fees to students. Photo: TT

Accordingly, Thu Dau Mot University proposed to refund the 37 billion VND of wrongly collected money to students. However, because the entire amount was paid into the budget before March 31, 2023 as requested by the State Audit, the school asked for the opinion of the Department of Finance and the People's Committee of Binh Duong province (the governing body) to consider and guide the refund to students.

Speaking with VietNamNet reporter , Dr. Nguyen Quoc Cuong - Chairman of Thu Dau Mot University Council said that due to the short time to resolve the wrongly collected amount as requested by the auditor (before March 2023), while the number of students of the school is up to nearly 20,000 people, the return is difficult to implement and not on time, so the immediate solution is for the school to pay into the budget according to the prescribed time.

According to Dr. Cuong, in response to public opinion, the school has come up with a plan to refund the tuition fees that were incorrectly collected to students. Currently, the school's professional agencies are reviewing and making statistics.

“The entire amount of tuition fees collected incorrectly for practice credits, according to the audit conclusion, will be returned to affected students by the school. However, this will take time and careful work to ensure the rights of students as well as compliance with the law,” the Chairman of the School Council affirmed.

Meanwhile, a leader of Binh Duong Provincial People's Committee said that after learning about this incident, the Provincial People's Committee also directed Thu Dau Mot University and related departments to coordinate to resolve the issue and ensure the rights of students.

Misunderstandings about tuition collection

Regarding the reason for the incorrect tuition fee collection, Dr. Cuong explained that the school misunderstood how to collect tuition fees for practical credits, while for theoretical credits, it was correct according to the State's regulations.

Specifically, in the period of 2020-2022, the school is not financially autonomous, so the tuition fee is implemented according to the provisions of 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 a larger scale.

In addition, the school also designs the training program to enhance practice so that learners have professional skills 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).

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 level 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.

Thu Dau Mot University is a public unit under the People's Committee of Binh Duong province. This is the university with the largest number of students in the province with about 20,000 people, training in many majors. From 2022, the school will begin to be financially autonomous in regular expenditures.

Why did the university collect 37 billion VND in tuition fees incorrectly but not return it to students?

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