PTN-BH Autonomy in Pierre Bourdieu's Perspective - Transformation of Capital and Habitus, Policies to Improve the Quality of Higher Education in Indonesia

Sep 10, 2026

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State Universities with Legal Entity status (PTN-BH) reflects a shift from government-run bureaucratic units to legally independent institutions with wide autonomy in teaching, administration, and financial management. Yet independence generates a structural mismatch between policy aspirations and field realities. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s Capital, Habitus, and Field theories, the study finds economic capital expanding faster than cultural capital, weakening academic quality. Limited ministry funding pushes PTN-BH to admit more students, creating crises in infrastructure field capital and teaching capital, where lecturer availability and learning groups become disproportionate. The novelty highlights the rarely addressed contradiction between financial capital accumulation and the devaluation of spatial and pedagogical quality, proposing multisectoral capital synchronization supported by local political capital.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Policy idealism and field reality (das Sollen vs das Sein)

Capital, Habitus, and Field as the analytic framework

Structural gap in education quality

Ontological transformation of PTN-BH and the occurring gap

PTN-BH Autonomy in Pierre Bourdieu's Perspective: Transformation of Capital and Habitus, Policies to Improve the Quality of Higher Education in Indonesia Radini Sinta* Doctoral Program in Educational Management Fathur Rokhman Universitas Negeri Semarang Eko Handoyo Universitas Negeri Semarang Nina Oktarina Universitas Negeri Semarang *[sintadini@students.unnes.ac.id](sintadini@students.unnes.ac.id) Abstract From an ontological perspective, the change in State Universities with Legal Entity status (PTN-BH) shows a move from being just government-run offices to separate legal bodies that have a lot of freedom in teaching, running the university, and managing money. However, this independence has caused a big gap between the ideal goals of policies and the real situation on the ground. This study seeks to examine the structural gap issue in PTN-BH by using Pierre Bourdieu's approach to sociology. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method based on Capital, Habitus, and Field theories to show that there is an imbalance where economic capital builds up more than cultural capital, like academic quality. Because of limited funding from the ministry, PTN-BH has to focus on practical solutions, which has led them to greatly increase the number of students they take in. Consequently, a crisis occurs in Field Capital (infrastructure) and Teaching Capital (teacher ratio), which are disproportionate to the number of learning groups. The novelty of this research lies in identifying the contradiction between financial capital accumulation and the devaluation of spatial and pedagogical quality a contradiction rarely discussed in the managerial literature. The proposed solution is multisectoral capital synchronization, including strengthening political capital from local governments to ensure the sustainability of graduate competitiveness at the global level. Keywords PTN-BH; Pierre Bourdieu; economic capital; field capital; policy habitus. INTRODUCTION Ontologically, the transformation of State Universities with Legal Entity (PTN-BH) is a manifestation of the shift in the essence of higher education in Indonesia, moving from a bureaucratic implementing unit to an independent legal entity [3] . The existence of PTN-BH brings great hope for achieving ideal international quality through broad autonomy in academic, management, and particularly financial sectors [4] . However, along the way, a sharp discrepancy has emerged between policy idealism (das Sollen) and field reality (das Sein) . This phenomenon creates a structural gap that threatens education quality due to an unbalanced reliance on certain forms of modal. According to Pierre Bourdieu's view, PTN-BH can be seen as a Field where different forms or ways of acting are involved [1] . Right now, the biggest issue comes from unequal access to economic resources: the ministry isn't providing enough money, and students don't have much financial ability, which leads to a major problem. To meet their operational needs, PTN-BHs have developed a practical way of thinking, where they take in many students to collect a lot of Single Tuition Fees (UKT) . However, the increase in the number of students is not matching up with the available Field Modal (infrastructure and classrooms) and Teaching Modal (number of lecturers). The mismatch is clearly shown by the fact that there are not enough teachers available for the different subjects compared to the number of students in the learning groups. This problem then leads to a reactive Policy Habitus. If the economy is made stable by using ways to reduce risks, like getting money from political sources such as local and central governments, then academic policies would be the main guide for improving the quality of graduates. Because of not enough money, PTN-BH has to lower the quality of their work to keep their institution going [5] . In reality, when it comes to Cultural Modal, PTN-BH already has a solid base in diversity.

FAQs

What structural gap does the study identify in PTN-BH autonomy policies?

It identifies a mismatch between policy goals and real conditions on the ground, driven by an unbalanced reliance on certain forms of modal (capital). Economic capital grows faster than cultural capital, affecting education quality.

How does the study apply Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts to PTN-BH?

It uses Capital, Habitus, and Field theories to examine how forms of capital (economic, cultural, field/infrastructure, and teaching/lecturer capacity) interact and create an imbalance across the education system.

Why does PTN-BH experience crises in infrastructure and teaching capacity?

Because limited ministry funding and weak student financial ability push PTN-BH to increase student intake, while infrastructure and lecturer numbers do not scale accordingly, leading to disproportionate learning-group support.

Sep 10, 2026

Uploaded by Anda