Addressing the Opening Ceremony of the Academic Year 2026-2027, President Erdoğan said: “We have brought a highly qualified higher education process to every corner of Anatolia. We have mobilized our state’s resources to ensure the children of this country, whatever income level they are from, receive education in the cities where they live.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered a speech at the Opening Ceremony of the Academic Year 2026-2027 in Ankara.
“As the state, we consider every investment made in education as an investment made in human beings and our future. We have taken revolutionary steps in the field of higher education over the past 24 years. We have increased the number of our universities, which stood at 76 when we came to power, to 208, our dormitories from 190 to 877, and our bed capacity from 182 thousand to 1 million. Some insist on handling this issue from a superficial and sinister perspective. We, however, see this gain as critically important in terms of access to higher education. As opposed to the West, where many universities demand exorbitant tuitions in return for the education they offer, or, more gravely, students step into professional life under a heavy burden of debt that takes years to repay, a very different picture prevails in our country. We have brought a highly qualified higher education process to every corner of Anatolia. We have mobilized our state’s resources to ensure the children of this country, whatever income level they are from, receive education in the cities where they live. We aimed to make sure that while the children of the rich received education, those of the poor didn’t miss out on higher education opportunities, postpone their university dreams, or start life 5-0 behind. To this end, we abolished university registration fees. We have increased the scholarships at undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels. We have renovated the infrastructure of our higher education institutes and dormitories, ameliorated their physical conditions, and strengthened their digital capabilities,” President Erdoğan stated.