Why thousands of Ukrainian applicants refused budget places: unexpected reasons and real motives
About seven thousand Ukrainian applicants, who chose budget places, refused them in favor of other offers. The MES assumes that this happened because the entrants are abroad or preferred private universities where there is no budgetary form of education. Both versions are questionable, as they show the desire of the Ministry to avoid responsibility for the shortcomings of this year’s admission campaign, in particular for weak informational support. Budget financing of specialties and educational programs, which are not attractive to applicants, is a separate problem. And most importantly, both assumptions leave the question open: “Why did applicants apply for the budget, if they did not plan to use it due to their stay abroad or interest in private institutions?”
How do the entrants themselves and their parents answer this question?
In the Vstup.osvita.UA Telegram channel, a lively discussion took place under the news, which proves that the representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture incorrectly assessed the reasons for the refusal of applicants to study on the budget.
How do applicants themselves explain their choice?
The choice in favor of a contract is often associated with a significant reduction in budget places for dream specialties. For example, in the passport of the educational program on official resources, the maximum number of places was indicated – 45, but in fact there were only 17. Applicants submitted applications, first choosing the universities where they wanted to enter the most, according to the 1st and 2nd priorities. Priorities 3, 4 and 5 were often set without special motivation, just “just in case”. Due to the reduction of places under the first priority, they entered the budget under the 5th priority, which did not correspond to their interests. For a day or two, or even a week, they pondered: why do I need “Railway transport” or “Applied mechanics” if I dreamed of becoming a marketer or a diplomat? And in the end they chose the contract form of education.
According to the Vstup.osvita.ua resource, the average cost of education at the second (bachelor) level is UAH 26,700 per year. Many educational institutions allow you to pay for your studies on a monthly basis. What is the amount? A little more than two thousand per month. It is difficult to call it unaffordable, especially considering the cost of tutoring services, educational centers for preparing for NMT, various creative and sports sections, which schoolchildren and their parents are used to.
As you can see, for the seven thousand entrants who preferred dreams to savings, the cost of education did not become too burdensome for the family budget.
“Many rejections due to face-to-face training. Children entered, thinking that it would be online.” – this is another explanation from parents who hoped for distance learning. It’s no secret that many schoolchildren studied in Ukrainian educational institutions while abroad. From there, they also enrolled in higher education institutions, counting on distance learning. However, many universities, under the pressure of those who are tired of online and dream of sitting down at the desk again, have announced an offline format. So, indeed, applicants abroad had to adjust their choices and refuse even the budget offer.
But there is also a radically different interpretation: “To be honest, most of the universities are distance learning, and they receive the budget there. Two of my friends received a budget, but a remote one, so they chose a contract to go face-to-face.”
Indeed, it is difficult to please applicants: some of them want to learn anything offline, while others, on the contrary, are comfortable with distance learning. So, budget rejections here are motivated by both reasons, depending on the situation.
Many comments relate to the lack of transparency of the university admissions system:
“I am sure that the problem is that schoolchildren have no idea how the entire university admissions system works. This is not explained in schools, although in my opinion they should be. And that’s why people set priorities randomly and as a result get a budget not where they want to study. Well, of course, some part of the entrants may simply change their mind, but I don’t think that there is such a large number.”
“I personally believe that schools should have a normal career guidance system and real informational training for future admission. And it should not be one test (in the best case) according to Klimov, which will tell you that you are a “natural person”, but systematic work with schoolchildren throughout their studies. So that children and teenagers generally know what options for further education exist and what is needed for this”.
“I thought that there would be several recommendations for the budget, from which you could choose one. I would like more clarifications from the Ministry of Education and Culture for the future.”
“We didn’t do it thoughtlessly, we were scared, suddenly we won’t enter any other place. And they were a little unaware that the place would burn down, and not go to the next one. To be honest, there were not many people who wanted to go there, so I think that nobody’s plans were spoiled.”
As you can see, informational support for entrants this year was insufficient. This has led to many misconceptions about how the admissions system works. It is also impossible to ignore a certain indifference of the entrants themselves, who did not decide on the choice of profession before the beginning of the admission campaign, and until the last decided which educational program and which university to choose.
This year, applicants were given the opportunity to enter 80,268 budget places. The percentage of those who refused budget seats is approximately 8.72%. This is an alarming number, which, we hope, will force the Ministry of Education and Culture to review the policy of supporting educational programs. Some of them are obviously not well supported. For example, the currently very popular “International Law” received only 70 budget seats for the entire country. Instead, “Ekologiya”, which is in much lower demand, received 750 budget seats. Even more — 840 places — were allocated to the educational program “Finance, banking”, which is also not in great demand. And there are many such examples.
There are also purely conspiratorial versions of the reasons for rejection of budget places among applicants: it is said that contract students are more profitable for universities, so they did everything not to accept documents from those who passed on the budget. This is absolute nonsense, because the state allocates much more funds for the training of a public employee than a contract employee brings. In general, a simple monitoring of thematic channels dedicated to admission-2024 shows an extremely low level of awareness of both applicants and their parents regarding the admission procedure. The Ministry of Education and Culture should implement an information campaign for admission-2025, starting from September of this year, disprove misconceptions about the admission system, introduce career guidance initiatives that would allow graduates to make a balanced, not an impulsive choice, which could lead to an unnecessary change of specialty or even to refusal from learning It is important to provide access to reliable information about opportunities on the labor market, real prospects for various professions and learning conditions, which will contribute to an informed choice of a future profession and help to avoid situations when yesterday’s schoolchildren, without having a complete picture, enter specialties that do not correspond to their interests and abilities
