INDONESIA: Mixed reviews for private universities

Motorbikes deliver students - some with helmets over their head-scarves, others with laptops slung across their shoulders - down the wide, tree-lined boulevard, past the mosque's gold dome, around a fenced-off excavation site where a ninth-century Hindu temple was uncovered this year, and onto the campus of the Islamic University of Indonesia, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.

It is the oldest private university in the country, and its alumni include national leaders of business and law. It was established by political figures in 1947 in Jakarta before being moved to Yogyakarta, the city in central Java known as the hub of Indonesia's higher education sector.

Thousands more private institutions have followed, creating a burgeoning private sector that is credited with improving access to college education in the country with more Muslims than any other. In 1945, about 2,000 students were enrolled in higher education institutions in Indonesia, according to data analysis by the World Bank. Today, there are about four million higher education students, with 68% enrolled in one of the more than 3,000 private institutions in the country. There are about 130 public institutions.
Full report on the New York Times site