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With the introduction of the Uang Kuliah Tunggal (UKT) policy in Higher Education Act 2012, Indonesia's policy indicates an attempt to implement both human capital for competitive advantage and social justice concepts within its higher education system. The Government's planning documents had increasingly emphasised the need for higher education to produce graduates that can be competitive at a global level, whilst the participation in higher education needed to be equitable. Public higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to come up with effective and efficient responses to both economic and social problems.

This research is aimed at investigating how the objectives of human capital accumulation were put into practice to implement the education for all as required by the Constitution. There is some inherent tension between these two missions. In the bottom ladder on implementing the UKT policy, the public HEIs must face a dilemma for acting on the conflicting action and rule in the policy text. For example, the dilemma comes from the need to pursue higher funding while maintaining certain affordable tuition fees, to pursue excellence while maintaining a place for the disadvantaged students and to pursue competitiveness while maintaining equity. The data of this study is investigated with interpretive policy analysis and bottom-up implementation approach. Thirty-two respondents from three public HEIs in Indonesia participated in this study to explore the enactment of UKT policy. To support the data, document and news analysis related to the implementation of the UKT policy is also conducted.

The findings of this study showed how the respondents have different interpretations of how UKT policy was enacted. Only one institution did the UKT based on the initial design but it needed to minimize the expansion of access. The other two institutions follow the idea to expand the students but limit the admission for students with low tuition fees. On the other hand, all public HEIs must operate below the standard cost needed for delivering good quality of education. The lack of funding put priority of allocation on qualification's prestige instead on the education itself.

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