NUS Reverses Plan to Double Fees for Master’s Course After Numerous Complaints from Students

While people in Singapore were transfixed by the loss of Trump and the upcoming vaccine distribution in Singapore, a massive issue was brewing in the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Here’s what happened.

“Fees and Subsidies Under Review”

When you select a course to study, one main factor students normally consider is the price you have to pay.

So imagine this: you’ve been researching on the various courses available in your choice, and after much hard work and headaches, you finally settle on one.

The content, the price and the schedule fit you.

Except, when you got your offer letter, you’re told that the “fees and subsidies for the course are under review”.

That was what happened to the prospective students of the Master of Technology in Enterprise Business Analytics (MTech Ebac) course run by NUS Institute of System Science (ISS).

Course fees were reportedly confirmed as early as Aug 2020 but when the students received their letter of offer on 4 Nov, it says that the course fees are “under review”.

The best part? They were only given until 10 Nov (that’s 6 days) to accept the offer.

Stressed Out & Unhappy

If you’re a prospective student affected by the unexpected announcement, you’re probably not amused. At all.

After all, what you’re essentially asked to do is to decide if you want to give the school a blank check…in 6 days.

And turns out, that’s what they essentially did.

Two days after the students accepted the offer, the new prices were revealed.

Fees between S$20,000 and S$21,400, including GST, for Singaporean and permanent residents, were increased to S$44,100 and S$49,770, excluding GST.

Yes, it doubled.

To make things worse, the affected students were not notified by NUS but found out from the school’s website instead.

Naturally, students were unhappy and some reportedly wrote to the Ministry of Education (MOE) while others took to the greatest level playing field of them all: social media.

Which, naturally, leads to the next step.

180-Degree Change

On 17 Nov 2020, NUS-ISS announced that they’re reversing the plan to increase fees for the Master of Technology in Enterprise Business Analytics (MTech Ebac) course.

The institute apologised for their actions and said they’ll be offering the courses to the students at the previously-offered price.

“We are pleased to inform you that NUS-ISS will be offering the previously published fees for your intake, which included subsidies of individual courses for qualified Singaporeans and Singapore permanent residents.”

ISS CEO, Khoong Chan Meng, also sent an email to affected students to apologise for their experience and said his team “could have handled it better”.

It wasn’t revealed why the school had suddenly decided to remove the subsidies for Singaporean and Permanent Residents for the course given that, as several students as pointed out, tech is the future of tomorrow.

Key Singaporean leaders had also repeated, once and again, how Singapore is sorely lacking talents in that field.

Meanwhile, affected students were glad that NUS has decided to honour the advertised fees as several reportedly considered withdrawing after the nasty surprise.

Featured Image: Arpan on Shutterstock / Shutterstock.com