Reciprocity Within the University: Grassroots Financial Aid as Hidden University–Community Engagement in a Global South Context

Andi Sri Wahyuni^1,2,^*, György Málovics ², Andi Nursyamsi Amin ¹, Andi Abdul Azis¹, Samsul Bahri¹

¹ Department of Accounting, Politeknik Negeri Ujung Pandang, Indonesia

² Faculty of Economic and Business Administration, University of Szeged, Hungary

Corresponding author: Andi Sri Wahyuni, andisriwahyuni@poliupg.ac.id

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/vbgsq488

Article History: Received 22/10/2025; Revised 07/08/2026; Accepted 26/08/2026; Published 09/2026

Abstract

A grassroots financial aid initiative established in 2018 by lecturers in the Department of Accounting at Politeknik Negeri Ujung Pandang, Indonesia, emerged after several students experienced severe financial hardship, including food insecurity, that affected their ability to participate in classes. In response, lecturers voluntarily contributed a portion of their monthly salaries to establish a collective fund known as ‘bansos’ (social aid). Initially created to provide emergency assistance for students’ tuition fees and daily food needs, the fund gradually expanded to support Internet data packages during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later, emergency assistance for cleaning staff and colleagues facing financial difficulties. The initiative operates through a simple, trust-based mechanism in which students experiencing financial hardship are identified by peers or academic advisors, screened by a coordinator and approved by the department. Assistance is provided without burdensome administrative requirements, enabling rapid responses to urgent needs. Sustained entirely through voluntary donations and mutual trust, the initiative has evolved into an informal departmental safety net that continues to support members of the university community experiencing financial hardship.

The initiative contributes to understandings of university–community engagement (UCE) by advancing an expanded concept of community. Rather than viewing community solely as an external group or ‘outsider’ to the university, it demonstrates that community (in fact, sites of precarity and social vulnerability) can also exist and be engaged with within the university itself. This suggests that UCE is not always necessarily outward-facing. In this way, the initiative blurs the conventional boundary between university and community. The initiative also extends understandings of UCE beyond formal, programmatic partnerships. It foregrounds the often-invisible moral labour involved in responding to precarity, as well as the significance of micro-level engagement and embodied reciprocity. Situated in Indonesia, this Snapshot contributes to diversifying the narratives of UCE that have predominantly emerged from the Global North and highlights the significance of informal, relational and grassroots forms of engagement in the Global South.

Keywords

University–Community Engagement; Financial Aid; Indonesian Higher Education; Bottom-Up Initiative; Global South Education

Introduction: Hunger on Campus and the Emergence of Mutual Care

In 2018, several students in our department of accounting at Politeknik Negeri Ujung Pandang (PNUP) fainted during class. They had skipped breakfast and lunch and attended lectures from early morning until late afternoon without adequate food. For many of them, coming to university in an urban centre meant leaving rural homes, in turn losing access to family support, and facing daily costs of living that far exceeded their family incomes.

As lecturers, we were aware of government-funded scholarship programs designed to support students from underprivileged backgrounds. However, these schemes are presently unable to accommodate all financially disadvantaged students. In 2023, only 780 014 out of 8 316 919 enrolled students received financial aid, representing only approximately 8.4 per cent of the university student population in Indonesia (Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education 2024; Statistics Indonesia 2023). In addition, the financial support was insufficient to cover recipients’ basic living expenses. This issue is especially relevant in the context of PNUP, where many students come from rural villages and small towns and leave their families behind to pursue higher education in Makassar. One prior study reported that, in rural areas, only 13.36 per cent of the population has graduated from high school (Hadna & Kartika 2017). For these students, the financial burden extends well beyond tuition fees. Makassar has one of the highest costs of living outside Java, and the prices of staple foods and other basic necessities have continued to increase due to inflation (Statistics Indonesia 2024). As a result, many students struggle to meet their daily needs whilst pursuing their studies far from their family. Whilst universities in Indonesia institutionally promote community engagement through, for example, mandatory community service activities, the everyday realities of poverty also shape the university community itself.

Financial hardship, compounded by limited access to financial aid, continues to prevent many university-age young people from pursuing higher education (Jati 2019). Instead of entering university, some are forced into child labour to support themselves and their families (Suryahadi, Priyambada & Sumarto 2005). Others who refuse to give up on their educational ambitions must work part-time to cover tuition fees and living expenses whilst pursuing their studies, often placing considerable strain on their academic experience. Tragically, one Indonesian student even died by suicide over their inability to afford school supplies as basic as a pencil and a book (Gunawan 2026). In 2018, as a response to this phenomenon, a small group of lecturers initiated an informal collective fund, which remains active at the time of writing. Each month, we voluntarily donate a portion of our salaries (four of the five authors of this article are regular contributors – please see the Author Statements). Initially, the money was used to buy food for students and help them pay tuition fees. Over time, our initiative expanded beyond student support to also include cleaning staff and colleagues facing medical emergencies.

As lecturers involved in the initiative, we occupied multiple roles: donor, faculty member and researcher. This positionality shaped both the practice and interpretation of the initiative. Participating in the fund blurred the boundaries between professional and personal responsibilities. This raises ethical questions about power, paternalism and dependency. Whilst students expressed gratitude, the initiative also risked reinforcing the hierarchical relationships between benefactors and recipients. Reflecting on this dual role highlights the importance of reflexivity in studying grassroots initiatives. Insider perspectives offer rich insights into motivations and practices but also require a critical self-examination of power dynamics and unintended consequences.

This Snapshot reflects on our grassroots financial aid initiative as a form of university–community engagement (UCE). It explores how such micro-level initiatives mitigate institutional shortcomings whilst simultaneously revealing and problematising systemic failures in higher-education funding in a Global South context. By framing this initiative as UCE, this Snapshot expands the conceptual boundaries of engagement to include intra-university solidarity and moral economies. It also raises questions about whose labour sustains educational access and whose responsibilities are acknowledged institutionally. By understanding the university as a complex actor with varying roles and moral commitments shaped by different values and responsibilities, this reflection contributes to ongoing debates on UCE, care labour and educational equity.

‘Bansos’: A Departmental Financial Aid Initiative

The initiative was started in response to a concerning observation: several of our undergraduate students were regularly absent or were visibly struggling to keep up in class. Conversations with academic advisors revealed stories of parents losing jobs, illnesses in families and students working multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet. Academic advisors are faculty members formally appointed by the Director of PNUP (stipulated in PNUP’s academic regulations) to provide academic and personal guidance to students. Their responsibilities include monitoring students’ academic performance, offering support for academic and personal challenges, and maintaining communication with parents or guardians when necessary (Tungadi & Triana 2020).

To set up the collective fund, a form was circulated among lecturers, asking for voluntary contributions of any amount. Of the 49 lecturers and staff members at the Department of Accounting, PNUP, 43 chose to participate. Contributions varied, but the majority amounts to IDR Rp 50 000 (USD 3.10). Considering that the average monthly food expenditure per person in the region is approximately IDR 137 304 (USD 8.5), this contribution is equivalent to nearly half the average monthly food expenditure per person in the region.

The department treasurer collected the funds, which were transferred to the department’s newly created ‘bansos’ fund (‘bansos’ is an abbreviation of the Indonesian term ‘bantuan sosial’, which translates to social aid/social assistance). The mechanism worked as follows: students who were known to be experiencing financial difficulties, such as issues with paying tuition fees or other study-related expenses, were either reported by their peers or could report their own situation to their academic advisor. The names of these students were then compiled and screened by the program coordinator (lecturer C) to assess their eligibility. The final list of eligible recipients was then approved by the head of department. The screening and approval process by the department officials aimed to ensure that the assistance program reached the right recipients. This process (ensuring that all students known to be experiencing financial difficulties are considered) helps ensure that the selection is fair and transparent.

However, the process was intentionally kept simple, with no formal proposals, contracts or any other additional bureaucratic requirements. Keeping the procedure simple made it easier for students to access assistance and enabled the aid to be distributed more quickly. This streamlined process also fostered closer relationships between student recipients and lecturer donors by minimising the bureaucratic procedures that typically characterise institutional or government aid distribution. These findings support the argument that, although universities are designed to prioritise efficiency through formal procedures, accountability and bureaucracy, characteristics that make them effective organisations, in the case of department-level mutual aid, these same institutional features can impede the development of authentic community partnerships (White 2012). By contrast, the simplified and less bureaucratic approach adopted in this initiative facilitated more personal, trust-based and dignified interactions between donors and recipients.

Assistance was framed as a ‘soft loan’, but repayment was voluntary and without interest. The initiative was designed from the outset as a long-term, collective safety net for students experiencing financial hardship, and its scope gradually expanded as the needs of our departmental community evolved. When the program started in 2018, the fund typically supported students’ tuition fees, food and Internet data packages during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, the fund expanded to respond to emerging forms of financial vulnerability, for instance, emergency assistance for staff. What started as an ad hoc response to hunger became an informal welfare system in the department. The amount of assistance provided was determined flexibly according to each recipient’s specific needs. However, no individual allocation exceeded the total funds available at the time, ensuring that the initiative never operated with a financial deficit. For instance, in 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered severe economic hardship, the largest expenditure was for groceries for students (IDR 9 050 000 or approximately USD 615). All assistance was transferred directly to recipients to simplify the distribution process and minimise administrative complexity.

For needs with clearly defined costs, such as tuition fees, recipients received the exact amount required to cover the expense. For needs without fixed prices, such as groceries for students and cleaning staff, the amount of assistance was estimated based on the local cost of living. These estimates were jointly determined by the head of the department and the department treasurer to ensure that the support provided was both reasonable and sufficient to meet recipients’ basic needs. Since 2021, the ‘bansos’ fund has continued to accumulate. According to the treasurer’s report, as of December 2022, a total of IDR 50.903.408 (USD 3428) had been raised. To ensure ongoing transparency and fairness in the fund’s management, the treasury periodically shares summary reports on the overall use of the donations and keeps donors informed of any issues or challenges related to the fund’s management through the departmental WhatsApp group.

To understand the impact of the initiative, we met with student recipients to hear about their academic experiences after receiving assistance. We also contacted alumni who were already working to learn how their lives had unfolded after graduation and what the financial support had meant to them in the longer term.

We held informal exchanges with all ‘bansos’ recipients who had received assistance with tuition fees and already completed their studies (given the Indonesian cultural context, in which students may feel uncomfortable being evaluated whilst still undertaking their studies, we limited these conversations to alumni). At the time this Snapshot was initiated (2023), five alumni had completed their studies and were available for these conversations. They described a range of positive impacts: one student explained that without this assistance, she would have postponed her studies for a year. Another described how the fund enabled her to complete her thesis after her parents’ death. Several graduates later reported improved employment prospects and the ability to financially support their families after completing the program. These positive outcomes cannot be attributed solely to the financial assistance itself, but rather to the fact that the recipients were able to complete their studies. The initiative was not intended to function as a prestigious scholarship that would directly enhance recipients’ academic or professional portfolios. Instead, it operated as a needs-based grant-in-aid scheme designed to remove immediate financial barriers to higher education.

For students who were unable to continue their studies due to unpaid tuition fees, the assistance enabled them to remain enrolled and complete their degrees. Degree completion, in turn, is a fundamental requirement for accessing formal-sector employment in Indonesia (Ariansyah et al. 2024)vocational school (Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan, SMK) and therefore expanded their opportunities for upward socioeconomic mobility. Similarly, some students who had previously needed to work extensively to cover basic living expenses, including food, rent and groceries, were able to devote more time to their studies after receiving assistance. This contributed to their timely graduation, which subsequently improved their prospects for their future career, along with long-term well-being, not only for themselves but also for their families.

From the lecturers’ perspective, participation was driven by moral obligation rather than institutional incentives. Although the institution administration was aware of the initiative and viewed it positively, lecturers’ collective engagement in the initiative was not recognised as part of their academic performance or promotion system (e.g., through academic credit or workload recognition). Thus, whilst the initiative received informal endorsement, it did not lead to structural changes in institutional policy or incentive mechanisms. Likewise, whilst colleagues from other departments expressed appreciation for the initiative and recognised its social value, this recognition did not translate into the establishment of ‘bansos’ in other departments.

Mutual Care as Hidden but Pivotal UCE

UCE is often conceptualised as universities working with external communities aimed at improving quality of life and generating positive social outcomes (Koekkoek, van Ham & Kleinhans 2021; Wahyuni, Málovics & Gébert 2026). However, our initiative highlights the fact that universities, as institutions, contain communities of students, staff and academics whose livelihoods are entangled with and thus affected by broader social inequalities.

Hence, we argue that the ‘bansos’ fund can be understood as inward-facing grassroots UCE, where we, as academics, act as community members who are responding to direct social needs in our immediate social environment. This challenges dominant UCE narratives that position universities as benevolent external actors, for whom social inequality is mostly an externality. However, as we have come to learn and see reflected across many Global South campuses, universities themselves are in fact sites of precarity and social vulnerability (Bozalek et al. 2020; Naveed & Sutoris 2020; Reimers et al. 2026), as well as sites of emerging mutual care practices.

Such care labour is essential for sustaining students’ participation and well-being, especially in contexts where public welfare systems are limited and where cost-of-living crises are proliferating. However, mutual care initiatives are frequently invisible within formal institutional structures and remain unaccounted for in institutional metrics. In the context of Indonesia, it is not counted as formal community service, nor is it typically recognised in academic performance evaluations. In our case, this meant that the lecturers’ collective efforts (including their time, emotional commitment and financial contributions) were appreciated informally but remained invisible within the university’s formal systems of recognition.

Problematising the University as a Fragmented Actor

Much of the dominant discourse surrounding higher education represents universities as coherent, monolithic institutions with unified policies and solid organisational capacities (Kadikilo et al. 2024; Ramirez-Cardona & Calderón-Hernández 2024). However, in reality, and in the current global political moment, universities are fragmented assemblages of actors with uneven power, resources and moral commitments. As this case illustrates, practices of care are not enacted uniformly across the institution but depend on the willingness and capacity of particular individuals and groups to assume responsibilities that extend beyond their formal roles. In our university, for instance, one of the institution’s three core missions is ‘to promote research, applied science and technology development, innovation, and community service that contribute significantly to government policy, industrial development, and improvements in community well-being’. Nevertheless, individuals and departments interpret and enact these commitments in different ways, leading to a fragmented support landscape across the institution.

Although universities are responsible for promoting academic excellence, reaching this objective depends fundamentally on students’ well-being. When students experience financial and social hardships, their ability to participate fully in higher education is compromised, leading to uneven academic performance and, ultimately, unequal educational outcomes (Sealetse & Kleynhans 2026). However, in reality and as our initiative shows, without a comprehensive and sufficiently resourced university-wide mechanism for addressing student poverty, it is the individual lecturers in their departments who end up bearing the burden of addressing the issue. This challenges narratives that locate social responsibility functions at the institutional level, without taking into account essential micro-level care work.

The initiative also illustrates the intricate moral economies of universities, where informal norms of care coexist with formal, and often uncaring, bureaucratic systems. These moral economies are shaped by cultural expectations, religious values and professional identities. In this case, lecturers’ participation was driven by a sense of moral duty rooted in local cultural and religious norms of charity and solidarity. In Indonesia, practices such as gotong royong (mutual cooperation) coexist with religious traditions of charitable giving. For many lecturers in our department, supporting students experiencing financial hardship was understood as an expression of both social solidarity and religious obligation, reflecting the belief that those with greater resources have a responsibility to assist those in need. However, moral economies are fragile and contingent (Manning & Browne 2022). They depend on voluntary participation and personal commitment, making them vulnerable to burnout, financial constraints and leadership changes (Wahyuni et al. 2024).

Mitigating Institutional Shortcomings: Micro-Level Successes

At the micro-level, this initiative mitigated several institutional limitations. First, it addressed the immediate material needs that formal government scholarships did not sufficiently cover. By providing food and tuition support, the fund reduced dropout risks and enabled students in our department to complete their studies. Second, the initiative did not recreate the usual bureaucratic barriers often associated with accessing financial aid. Instead, financial need was identified through existing relationships with peers and academic advisers, reducing the barriers for students who were less able or less willing to advocate for themselves within formal university structures. This administrative agility allowed for rapid responses to crises, such as student and staff support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Third, the initiative fostered a sense of belonging and mutual responsibility within our department. Students reported increased motivation and gratitude, whilst lecturers expressed strengthened collegiality and a strengthened collective sense of purpose.

In this sense, the ‘bansos’ fund functions as a form of micro-level social service provision that fills a considerable gap within the university. This illustrates how grassroots initiatives can complement formal institutional systems, particularly in resource-constrained contexts.

Conclusion: Small Acts, Systemic Questions

Whilst the initiative mitigates individual hardships, it also highlights a number of systemic failures in higher-education financing and social service provision. Relying on voluntary lecturer donations to sustain students’ access to education highlights the inadequacy of existing state- and university-level support mechanisms. Relying on mutual aid initiatives risks normalising austerity in higher education and shifts responsibility for education equality from institutions and governments towards individual academics. In consequence, grassroots-level care can inadvertently depoliticise structural inequalities (Wahyuni et al. 2024). By addressing these gaps, micro-initiatives may reduce the pressure on institutions and governments to enact necessary systemic reforms. Consequently, precarious students and staff who ’get by’ with the help of informal funds may be less likely to mobilise for policy change. Moreover, universities may showcase such initiatives as evidence of their socially responsive campus community, without acknowledging, let alone addressing, systemic funding inequities.

Moreover, the distribution of and access to such initiatives is uneven. Only students within our departments or social networks benefited from our fund. This potentially reproduces inequalities across faculties and institutions. This selective welfare creates unwanted moral hierarchies of need based on personal factors such as proximity to the aid providers. In turn, our initiative also raises critical questions about the sustainability and ethics of informal welfare systems within universities. Dependence on personal generosity is unpredictable and can mask systemic institutional neglect. It places further emotional and financial burdens on academics, particularly in Global South contexts where academic salaries are often modest, higher education is chronically underfunded and student financial needs are existential (Bozalek & Boughey 2012; Campbell & Neff 2020; Mpofu & Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2020). At the time, the monthly salary of newly appointed lecturers was below the regional minimum wage, amounting to only IDR 3 294 467 (approximately USD 210). This paradox, in which grassroots initiatives both alleviate and obscure systemic problems, highlights the need for critical reflection on the role of mutual aid in higher education, particularly in the Global South.

Lastly, UCE scholarship should pay greater attention to the paradoxes of university–internal grassroots engagement. Our findings echo concerns raised in critical higher education and UCE scholarship that grassroots initiatives often emerge where formal institutional and state support is insufficient. Across many Global South contexts, academics increasingly fill gaps created by persistent inequality, constrained public resources and growing student precarity (Drissi, Meftah & Skalli 2025; Griffin et al. 2024; Medina-Bueno et al. 2024). Whilst these initiatives demonstrate the transformative potential of care, solidarity and collective action, they also risk shifting institutional responsibilities onto individuals whose contributions remain largely informal, invisible and unrecognised. Recognising these tensions is essential if UCE is to contribute not only to immediate forms of support but also to longer-term institutional and structural change.

The grassroots financial aid initiative described here demonstrates the importance and transformative potential of inward-facing UCE, where the university recognises and engages with the challenges of its own community. For individual students, the fund enabled educational continuity, improved their employment prospects and enhanced their social mobility. For lecturers, it fostered solidarity and moral purpose among them. The scope of the fund gradually expanded beyond students to include other members of the university community experiencing financial hardship. This included cleaning staff, many of whom were employed on non-permanent contracts and received only the minimum wage, as well as junior lecturers facing financial difficulties.

However, the initiative also exposes systemic shortcomings in higher-education financing and social service provision. It reveals how universities are fragmented actors, where micro-level moral economies compensate for institutional shortcomings and state failures.

Small acts of solidarity are profoundly significant for those they touch; however, they also raise urgent questions about who is responsible for ensuring that higher education is accessible, equitable and sustainable. By reflecting on this paradox, this Snapshot has sought to offer a small glimpse into the intricacies of safeguarding academic access and excellence amidst a global higher-education landscape under pressure.

Acknowledgements

We express our deepest gratitude to all the lecturers who generously took part in this project and wholeheartedly supported its social mission.

Author Statements

The authors’ positions and roles within the initiative provide important context for understanding their involvement in the program.

Author 1 (ASW) is a junior lecturer in the Department of Accounting at PNUP, where she joined in 2018. She was a new lecturer when the initiative began. At the time, her monthly salary was relatively low and, for a period, fell below the minimum wage established by the local government. In 2021, she commenced doctoral studies overseas. During her study leave, her salary was further reduced because she was no longer entitled to receive her full salary. Despite this, she continued to contribute a portion of her monthly salary to the initiative.

Author 3 (ANA) is a junior lecturer in the Department of Accounting at PNUP and serves as the initiative’s treasurer. She records the monthly cash inflows from faculty contributions and the cash outflows distributed to student beneficiaries.

Author 4 (AAA) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Accounting at PNUP. At the time the initiative was established, he was the study program coordinator and was responsible for screening and selecting prospective beneficiaries.

Author 5 (SB) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Accounting at PNUP. He was the head of the department when the initiative was established and was responsible for approving the list of student beneficiaries proposed by the study program coordinator.

CRediT statement

Conceptualisation: ASW. Data curation: ASW, ANA, AAA and SB. Investigation: ASW, ANA, AAA and SB. Methodology: ASW and GM. Software: ASW and ANA. Supervision: GM. Validation: GM, ANA and AAA. Visualisation: ASW and ANA. Writing – original draft: ASW. Writing – review and editing: ASW, ANA and GM.