Istanbul's University Entrance Crisis: Officials, Academics and Parents Demand Answers Before September

Turkey's Student Selection and Placement Centre, known by its acronym ÖSYM, is expected to release the 2026 YKS university entrance exam results by July 18, and Istanbul education officials are already warning that the city's higher education infrastructure cannot absorb another record application cycle. The Ministry of National Education's Istanbul Provincial Directorate confirmed this week that roughly 340,000 secondary school graduates in the city sat the two-stage exam in June — a number that has climbed by nearly 14 percent since 2022, driven partly by the continued arrival of Syrian and Afghan families who have settled permanently in districts like Bağcılar and Esenyurt.

The timing matters. Iran's political transition, economic turbulence across the region, and a Turkish lira that has lost more than 40 percent of its value against the dollar since early 2024 have all pushed middle-class Istanbul families to treat university placement as an emergency rather than a milestone. Private tutoring centres — dershanes — along Kadıköy's Bahariye Caddesi are reporting waiting lists of six weeks for mathematics and science courses, with monthly fees for intensive programmes now reaching 8,500 lira, roughly the city's average monthly wage for a young service worker.

Opposition and Government Trade Blame Over Classroom Deficit

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, led by CHP Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, released a municipal education audit on Tuesday pointing to a shortfall of at least 620 classrooms across the city's European side alone. The report, compiled by the municipality's urban planning arm, singles out Sultangazi and Arnavutköy as the two districts where the student-to-classroom ratio has surpassed 40 to one in state secondary schools — well above the ministry's own stated ceiling of 30. The municipality argues that the central government, which controls the school-building budget through the Ministry of National Education, has failed to act on requests submitted as far back as February 2025.

The ministry's Istanbul directorate pushed back sharply. In a written statement, officials said 18 new school buildings are under construction across the city and will be operational before the 2026-27 academic year begins in September. Three of those projects are in Başakşehir, where rapid population growth has strained existing facilities since at least 2019. Officials also pointed to the government's Education Vision 2030 framework, which allocates 4.2 billion lira to Istanbul infrastructure over three years — though critics note that figure was set before the current inflation cycle eroded its real value by roughly a third.

Academics are watching the quarrel with impatience. Researchers at Boğaziçi University's Faculty of Education, based on the Hisar campus above the Bosphorus in Bebek, have been tracking what they describe as a two-tier collapse: state schools under-resourced and overcrowded, private schools increasingly unaffordable. According to data the faculty presented at a May conference in Şişli, the share of Istanbul families spending more than 20 percent of household income on private schooling rose from 31 percent in 2021 to 47 percent in 2025.

What Students and Families Should Expect This Month

For the hundreds of thousands of families waiting on exam results, the practical calendar is tight. ÖSYM's online preference portal will open within 72 hours of score publication, giving students a 10-day window to rank universities. Education counsellors at the Istanbul branch of the Tohum Autism Foundation on Istiklal Caddesi — which also runs a broader educational advisory service — told The Daily Istanbul that demand for placement guidance has tripled this cycle, with families particularly anxious about foundation university fees that now start at 120,000 lira per semester.

The municipality says it will open free university guidance clinics at six district cultural centres beginning July 20, including venues in Üsküdar and Fatih. Whether those clinics ease the pressure depends on whether enough trained staff can be mobilised in time — the municipality's own education department acknowledged a shortage of qualified counsellors, with 40 positions still unfilled as of this week. Applications for those posts close July 9.