The Barisan Nasional (BN) government bears between 85 and 95 percent of tuition fee subsidy to ease the burden of students at public institutions of higher learning, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said.

As such, he said, the students were only required to pay their tuition fees at a very minimum rate.

“For example, a medical student at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) needs only to pay a tuition fee of RM9,000 for a five-year course compared to the actual fee of RM166,000. That means the student only pays 5.4 percent of the actual fee as the other 94.6 percent is paid by the government.

“An engineering student at UKM needs to pay RM5,600 for a four-year course compared to the actual fee of RM61,200. The student merely pays 9.2 percent while the government pays the other 90.8 percent,” he said at the 1Malaysia Kelantan Undergraduates Gala Dinner at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Shah Alam.

Present were International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed and UiTM vice-chancellor Prof Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar.

On the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) issue, Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said only 15 to 30 percent of the loans was used by the students to pay the tuition fees, while the other 70 to 85 percent went to their living expenses.

“The abolishment of PTPTN loans as proposed by the opposition will cause the students to look for sponsors to pay their tuition fees,” he said.

Muhyiddin said as at Dec 31, 2011, a total of 11,764 students who managed to graduate with a first class degree or equivalent, had also been exempted from repaying their study loans to PTPTN.

PTPTN, he said, had also approved 1.93 million loan applications involving an allocation of RM42.96 billion up to Dec 31, 2011.

“To provide study loans to students, PTPTN has to take loans from other financial institutions with the interest rate of between four and five percent borne by the government.

“For 2012, the government has to bear RM1.09 billion to pay the interest to the financial institutions,” he added.

- Bernama