Private Universities

A private view from Minta Ampun, a private-university lecturer writing under a pseudonym. First published in the mid-2010s; trimmed and fact-checked below.

I took a lecturing post at a private university in Jakarta expecting something like the universities I had known as a student and later as a teacher: reading lists that mattered, lecturers as a resource rather than a nanny, students who owned their own education. Across several institutions and many years, what I found was different enough to sour me on the job.

Intellectual muscle

Of the hundreds of students I taught, I can count on one hand those who read beyond the single set textbook. Attendance, phones and noise took up more of my time than the material did. When we discussed a reading, the questions were "which chapters do we need?" and "will it be on the exam?" — never what it meant.

Encouraging venality

Plagiarism was routine, not exceptional. On one assignment about academic integrity itself, roughly a quarter of the class submitted cut-and-paste essays — one a plagiarised argument against plagiarism. In my own undergraduate years, a single proven case was a campus scandal ending in suspension; here it drew a shrug. Some of that sits with the institutions: a university competing for tuition revenue has little appetite for expelling a paying student. That is my own experience, at a handful of campuses over a number of years — an opinion, not a survey of the sector, and worth reading against what has actually changed since.

What has changed

Two assumptions behind this essay no longer hold. Accreditation is no longer an afterthought: BAN-PT overhauled its standards in 2025, and in 2024 regulators publicly flagged 84 private universities as at risk of closure over accreditation failures — a sector this essay treats as unexamined is now under active, sometimes uncomfortable, scrutiny. Some private campuses are doing well out of it: Binus University, Indonesia's top-ranked private institution, sits in the QS World University Rankings 2026's 851–900 band and the QS Asia top 200. Nor does the claim that "there are no poor students in private universities" hold up: KIP Kuliah, the government's tuition-plus-stipend scholarship, funded roughly a million students in 2025 on a 2026 budget of Rp15.3 trillion, across hundreds of accredited private universities, Trisakti, Binus and UPH among them. The old complaint about gaming students throttling campus internet reads as a dated anecdote, not a current condition, and has been dropped on that basis.

Choosing a university, in practice

None of this makes every private university a safe bet — quality still varies enormously, and the underlying warning here (check before you commit) still stands. Before enrolling, or sending a dependant, check the institution's current BAN-PT or LAM accreditation rating and its standing in QS, THE or uniRank Indonesia. Foreign nationals studying here need a Student Visa (Type 316) or Student KITAS, sponsored by the institution, requiring proof of at least US$2,000 in funds and a letter of acceptance, valid up to two years and renewable. For the visa mechanics, Okusi's immigration guidance is the authoritative reference; for the wider picture, see our Schools & Education section.

"Minta Ampun" is the pseudonym of a foreign national, long-time university lecturer who wishes to remain anonymous, having chosen to live and likely retire in this region. Before teaching at several well-known institutions in Jakarta, he taught at colleges and universities across North and South America, Europe and elsewhere in Asia.

Contributor: Minta Ampun

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