The number of applicants for postgraduate programs in Shanghai dropped this year for the first time in more than a decade, according to the Shanghai Education Examination Authority.

 

The drop comes amid changes to tuition fee policies at four of the city's largest universities, which will see most postgraduate students pay full tuition for the first time.

 

Altogether 95,045 people from all over the country applied for postgraduate programs at 56 local universities or research institutes this year, a drop of 6.5 percent from last year.

 

Applications had risen for the past 13 years.

 

This year's biggest drops came in the number of applications for Master of Laws programs, which fell nearly 24 percent compared with last year.

 

MBA programs continue to prove popular, however, with applications rising 4.5 percent despite the tuition change.

 

"The drop in applicants should be attributed to the new tuition system at four pilot universities," the examination authority said in a report.

 

In the past, applicants who scored well on entrance exams didn't have to pay tuition. Starting this year, all postgrad students at four of the city's largest universities - Fudan, Jiao Tong, Tongji and East China Normal University - must pay tuition, which ranges from 10,000 yuan (US$1,250) to 20,000 yuan a year depending on the major.

 

The change went into effect in September. Fudan's postgrad school continued to be the most popular, receiving 14,331 applications this year, about 14 percent fewer than last year.

 

Jiao Tong and Tongji both saw the number of applications received drop by about 11 percent this year, while the number of applicants dropped by about eight percent at East China Normal University.

 

"It's normal for people to have doubts about new things," Zhu Qingshi, president of the Anhui Province-based University of Science and Technology of China, said of the tuition changes during an academic forum in the city over the weekend.

 

The presidents of 27 Chinese and Japanese universities attended the two-day forum to discuss student exchanges and postgraduate education in the two countries.

 

(Shanghai Daily December 11, 2006)