With the recent 50% increase in Credit and Dormitories Institution (KYK) dorm fees, more students are starting to speak up about the government’s lack of support for university students. Thousands of tweets are surfacing around X where students are expressing their thoughts on the scholarships provided by the government, stating that they only get 66 TL per day, which isn’t even enough to buy a cup of coffee in the current economy. The first formal response to these complaints came from the Ümraniye Municipality, announcing a 10k TL scholarship to new university students residing in Ümraniye.
The applications for the scholarship will be available on the municipality’s website. Students who want to apply can do so with their student certificates and the completed application form. The scholarship is only available to individuals who are applying to a public or foundation university for the first time. The applications will close on the October 4th.
Ümraniye Mayor İsmet Yıldırım’s comments on the scholarship were as follows: "I sincerely congratulate you on your achievements in the university entrance exam. I wish good luck to all students residing within the borders of our municipality for the new paths this educational support of ten thousand liras will open in front of them.”
For the time being, Ümraniye Municipality is the only government agency that has declared additional funding for college students in response to the recent criticism of increased KYK dorm fees and calls for a 50% increase in KYK scholarships.
The current KYK scholarship for university students is 2k per month, which was last updated in August 2024. Many are waiting for a new increase, as new inflation rates are being announced every month. Some students even demand that there should be a raise in scholarship amounts every three months, according to the announced inflation rates and the power of the Turkish currency. When KYK scholarships are examined in dollars, they are currently equal to 54 dollars, which is a little less than 12% of the current minimum wage in Türkiye, illustrating how unlikely it is for students to live off of their scholarship alone. The KYK scholarship back in 2013, on the other hand, was almost equal to 37% of the 2013 minimum wage.
Students with unmet demands for scholarships have started searching for alternative scholarships, provided by third parties, to be able to pay their updated dorm fees and other basic amenities. However, recent posts on X show that these applications are too long and tedious. Some students on X question if these third parties are purposefully making the applications this long so that students would be discouraged and wouldn’t have to pay for these scholarships. Examples of extreme document demands include reports from a health institution stating the applicant is a non-smoker and yes-or-no questions like “Are you an influencer?”
In addition to the amount of scholarships, many students are complaining about the limited availability of scholarships as well. In other countries, such as the US, universities are extremely expensive; however, there are numerous third parties and schools offering millions in scholarships, to students from multiple backgrounds. In Türkiye, on the other hand, the number of scholarships is very limited, and except for some given by third parties that provide scholarships based on competitions or talents in certain fields, the demographic is almost always the same. While some students are basically dependent on these scholarships to be able to pay for basic amenities, others use the money from scholarships for their social outings. Though this isn’t wrong, it is clearly unjust. It is not necessarily open to debate that there is a segment of students who should have the advantage if there is a limited number of offered scholarships. The lack of comprehensive scholarship databases in Türkiye also contributes to this problem, as it is one of the main reasons students can’t find scholarships suitable for them. In the US, there are several comprehensive scholarship databases, where students can filter the scholarships to find the ones they are the best fit for. While in Türkiye, there are a couple of independent websites, each advertising its own scholarship, meaning students have to skim through thousands of websites, which most of the time aren’t even updated, and make calls to gain sufficient information, displaying the disorganized nature of scholarships in Türkiye.
As students keep struggling with rising living costs and challenges to get financial support, the need for comprehensive and accessible help from both the government and third parties is getting increasingly urgent. Though Ümraniye municipality's new scholarship is a strong step in the right direction, multiple other municipalities have to follow similar steps for the problem to be completely resolved.