Indonesian Scholarship Hunters Bet Millions of Rupiah for a Maybe

JAKARTA - Rea had already spent a lot of money when she found out that she was burning her money.

The documents, which include her diplomas, transcripts, birth certificate, and police clearance, had all been apostilled. Five documents at roughly 150,000 rupiah each through the official channel, plus hundreds of thousands more spent to avoid delays as deadlines closed in. 

She lived on the island of Borneo, a distance away from Jakarta, so she knew she had to triple-check everything. She was sure that the translations were sworn and the notary stamps were clear. She sent them off to the Romanian embassy and her pulse raced with the kind of hope that only comes when it’s this close to reach Europe.

Then, she was notified that the apostilles were in the “wrong category.” The apostilles she'd paid for, waited for, stressed over weren't valid for her application type. She’d have to start over, pay again, and wait again.

“I felt like crying because that was my own savings being used,” she recalls. 

Like Rea, thousands of Indonesian students pursue scholarships overseas every year through programs run by the Indonesian government such as LPDP, as well as by foreign universities, governments, and international organizations. 

The pitch is compelling. For them, that means tuition fully paid, monthly living stipends, and the chance to study abroad without drowning in debt. UNESCO data shows that as of 2022, over 62,000 Indonesian students were studying overseas. On paper, these scholarships level the playing field and anyone can apply fairly, but fairness assumes the ability to afford the attempt. 

Millions of Rupiah for a Maybe 

The scholarship might be free, but the application process is expensive enough to filter out anyone who can’t allocate several million rupiah on a maybe.

Applying for scholarships requires a lot of documents. The English test, like IELTS and TOEFL, now runs at roughly 3.49 million rupiah as of mid-2025, up from 2.9 million just five years ago. 

The apostilles at the Ministry of Law are at 150,000 rupiah each if handling the bureaucracy directly, or 500,000 to 800,000 if going through an agent. The sworn translations at 50,000 to 100,000 rupiah per page, and at least half a dozen documents need translating. 

These are only some of the hurdles potential students face. Many scholarships require an initial application, often with a fee of about €60 to €100 (between 1,1 up to close to 2 million rupiah), just to obtain a letter of acceptance. 

Only after that letter is secured can the scholarship application begin. If the scholarship does not come through, the money is lost. Some give up on studying abroad, while others go ahead and cover tuition and living costs that can reach thousands of euros each year.

Then comes the passport fees. A regular non-electronic passport good for five years costs 350,000 rupiah, ten years runs 650,000. The electronic version (which some countries prefer or require for visa processing) costs 650,000 for five years or 950,000 for ten. And starting in 2027, the Indonesian government plans to stop issuing 10-year passports and simplify them into one type of national passport, with a 5-year validity period.

Rea remembers almost not applying to one scholarship program because they required an upfront and non-refundable application fee at around 100 euros. She looked at the number, did the conversion to rupiah, and hesitated because that was real money. If she didn't get in, there would be no appeals, no refunds, and nothing to show for it except the knowledge that she’d tried and failed.

“I know a friend who is very smart but backed out because they didn't have the money to pay for the English test, which costs over 3 million rupiah.”

Rea recalls that her friend had the grades, the drive, the exact profile that scholarship programs say they're looking for. But she didn't have three million rupiah lying around to gamble on a test she wasn't sure she’d pass.

Government data backs this up. Indonesia’s 23.85 million people living below the national poverty line in March 2025 (8.47% of the population) face structural barriers to education. 

With the poverty line set at 609,160 rupiah per person per month (roughly $1.19 per day), spending 4 to 7 million rupiah on scholarship applications represents several months of income for families at this level. 

The Jakarta Tax 

Then comes the geographic and time taxes. Offices, embassies, and training or test centers are mostly concentrated in Jakarta, so when someone outside wants to apply, they would have to dedicate days or even weeks just to get a document or two done. 

Rea also dealt with this. “The transport cost was significant, not to mention having to take time off from work or college. That time cost is what makes someone stressed because we're chasing application deadlines.”

Fadel Muhammad from Padang shares a similar story. A graduate of Transylvania University in Brasov, Romania, he’s currently pursuing a master’s degree through the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master (EMJM) program at Université de Lorraine in Nancy, France. 

Applying for the Romanian Government Scholarship doesn’t require an English proficiency test, but for someone living over 1,200 kilometers away from Jakarta, that means weeks long back-and-forth trips to the capital for one documentation.

He recalls months before he set foot in Romania around 2020. He had a choice between a 400,000-rupiah bus ride or a two-million-rupiah flight, round trip, so he chose the bus that’s 30 hours of travel time but cheaper.

When he arrived at the embassy, one document was missing a clear stamp. He had to extend his stay in Jakarta, book another night somewhere, eat another meal, and miss another day back home. 

“The time cost really hit hard, I had to leave everything in Padang for almost a week just for one appointment in Jakarta,” he said. By the time he was done, he'd spent three to four million rupiah on a document, and this was for a scholarship he eventually won.

Another time, Fadel came back to Jakarta for another document only to discover the embassy was closed. It was a national holiday in Romania. He hadn’t thought to check their calendar.

"I had to add more days staying in Jakarta, which meant more costs. It felt like I was already falling, then getting hit by the stairs." The extra night cost him another 300,000 rupiah for a budget hostel, plus meals, plus the stress.

Before Romania, Fadel had a dream to apply for a scholarship to an East Asian country, but because the required language certificate could only be taken in Jakarta or Surabaya and the combined cost of the test and flights from Padang felt like a gamble he could not afford, he stepped back.

He recalls a “heartbreaking” story of one dear friend who spent a fortune on scholarships abroad. “A close friend, clearly very capable, ended up taking whatever work was available back home because there was no ‘backup fund’ to afford the cost of applying for a scholarship abroad.”

Fadel puts it simply, “The effort required is double or triple compared to people living in Jakarta.” 

The Costs After 'Congratulations'

Once in, settling into a new city and country means more spending on top of everything already burned through applications. For people from lower economic backgrounds outside Java, this hits differently. 

Not to mention that plenty of these programs don't provide adequate stipends, or any stipend at all. That means relying on part-time work in a foreign country (often restricted by visa rules) or money sent from home. For families at Indonesia's poverty line of 609,160 rupiah per person monthly, that "money from home" option doesn't exist and it was never there to begin with.

When Fadel landed in Romania winter of 2020 with his acceptance letter and a student visa, he needed to apply for a residence permit. That required local health insurance. His Indonesian insurance was worthless. 

"The documents we'd already legalized in Indonesia had to be translated again into Romanian by local translators here so they could be used for residence permit processing. And the price was in Euros or Lei, so it was pretty expensive when converted to rupiah."

Rea hit the same wall. “When I went to Romania, it was health insurance! It turned out the insurance from Indonesia wasn't valid, so I had to buy it again here for the residence permit requirement. Then, there was the cost of translating documents again locally here because they requested translations into Romanian legalized by a local notary. That was a shock, the price was in Euros.”

Fadel hit yet another block when it came to paying his dormitory deposit. Although the scholarship he earned covered housing, the deposit had to be paid out of pocket. “Even though the dorm was cheap, the deposit at the beginning still had to be paid.”

The Million-Rupiah Question

Is it still a fully funded scholarship if needing to be middle class to apply?

Aside from covering tuition and living expenses, some scholarships even offer airfare, health insurance, and even a stipend for books and supplies. 

Once in, the financial burden drops dramatically compared to paying individually for an international degree. But that “once in” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Rea’s apostille story isn't unique. Plenty of people spend money on documents that turn out to be incorrect, incomplete, or invalid for reasons they didn't anticipate. Fadel's travel costs aren’t something uncommon either. Most applicants from outside Jakarta make multiple trips to the capital during the application process. 

These physical, mental, and material costs add up fast, and they hit hardest for the people who can least afford them. 

In January 2024, LPDP’s leadership publicly acknowledged that historically, the majority of scholarship recipients have come from Java since the program's inception.

The disparity was severe enough that by October 2025, LPDP reported it had funded over 14,000 affirmative action recipients specifically from underdeveloped and border regions across 127 regencies and cities, including Papua and 3T (foremost, outermost, underdeveloped) areas.

“Don't let the dreams of kids from the regions get buried just because they can't afford a ticket to Jakarta,” Rea says.

Fadel says it directly. "In my opinion, this access is really unfair. People living in Greater Jakarta have a massive privilege." They can take the commuter rail or ride-hailing to an embassy or a test center. 

But for people outside Java, or even outside the big cities in Sumatra, "the cost of 'accessing the access' itself becomes a wall." The price of just being able to try becomes its own barrier.

“So yeah, I strongly agree that the costs and process indirectly filter out people from the regions and make these scholarships more inclined toward urban or middle-to-upper-class people who have the capital to be mobile.”

Whether intentional or not, the result is the same: access is filtered by money and geography long before merit is assessed. 

But right now, somewhere in the corner of Indonesia’s mega archipelago, a student is looking at an overseas scholarship announcement. They’re doing the math of English tests, apostilles, translation fees, and flight costs in their head. Then, they’re asking their parents, only to realize that they can’t make the numbers work. 

And then, they close the tab.