Universities face shortage of students Many universities are facing a shortage of hundreds of students this academic year. The problem was raised during the review conference for 2016-2017 academic year and this year held by the Ministry of Education and Training on August 11. As students can apply to multiple institutions before admission standards are set, the universities face an inaccurate number of applications every year. According to the ministry, as of August 8, about 110,000 out of 352,000 students didn't register for the universities they applied to. Many universities such as the University of Communications and Transport, National University of Civil Engineering and Water Resources University lack from 300 to 800 students compared to their quota even though the ministry claimed to have the situation under control. The universities had called each student but they all wanted to register to other universities or had other plans.    Students apply to Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy When being asked, Minister of Education Phung Xuan Nha said, "It's not too difficult to understand why 110,000 students didn't register. Educational institutions need to compete. Students will feel more secure to apply to quality institutions." Nha warned the universities not to recruit too many students for popular courses even though there are few jobs in those sectors.  Hoang Minh Son, head of Hanoi University of Science and Technology said universities should invest more into consultancy, market research and communication departments. Also at the meeting, many complained that the tests this year seemed to result in too many maximum scores which lead to impossibly high entrance scores at some universities.  Nha said the exam was transparent and there were still many average-scoring students. However, too many students applied to popular universities like Hanoi Medical University. Places at these universities were actually halved which made competition tougher. He promised the technology and framework would be improved next year. NLĐ