Students attend campus barefoot

Every year, the college begins accepting applications for new students. According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), there will be 8,956,184 Indonesian students in 2021. This figure is expected to rise in 2022. However, there is another point worth mentioning: tuition fees, which continue to rise year after year. 

This issue has also sparked debate among students at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, as several Twitter users have stated on the @unsfess wall that it is difficult for them to pay a single tuition fee (UKT). Despite the fact that the study location is a State University (PTN).

On Tuesday, October 12, 2022, Sebelas Maret University students were surprised to see students from the Faculty of Cultural Sciences go to the campus with plastic bags, ripped clothes, ripped pants, and no shoes or sandals. This is an extremely rare occurrence that has never occurred before. They walked to campus together, without using a vehicle.

They carried out an implicit demonstration with the goal of reducing the cost of paying tuition for students. They do this because a lot of people are not doing well financially and get a lot of messages saying they can't pay their tuition.

One of the students majoring in English literature named Keenan explained what happened, that in fact it happened because some students could not afford the rising tuition fees because some of them could not afford it and there is a problem with financial stability.

"We did this because there is a friend of ours who was planning on not going to college for half  semester because he had to work alone to pay the very high tuition fees, and also some of us object to not paying the high tuition fees, but it is not worth the facilities provided,” Keenan said.