<p>This study demonstrates that the government's ambition for World Class University (WCU) status without adequate funding commitments, reveals a neoliberal mindset. While the government embraces internationalization and views the WCU as a path to societal progress, these reforms have sparked protests from students and community groups. Ideally, higher education reforms are intended to improve quality in a global context, but face great resistance in Indonesia. The state's role should be to ensure affordable and high-quality education, but this role is weakening. Drawing on media analysis of news articles and government reports, this study employs a qualitative research framework that focuses on the ethnographic analysis of texts. It aims to capture the social context, situations, and emotions within student protests and to investigate the underlying factors beyond potential tuition fee hikes. A semiotic approach through multi-document analysis was utilized to uncover the diverse assumptions and motives in response to the highly complex educational situation that is currently occurring. The findings indicate that the WCU in a resource-constrained nation disrupts the education market and generates public distrust. This disruption was exacerbated by the state's efforts to facilitate the liberalization and privatization of higher education through the Education Legal Entity Law in 2012, even though this law ultimately failed to pass or be implemented effectively. However, these attempts at commercialization and privatization have resulted in expensive tuition fees, thereby restricting access to quality higher education for certain groups. The conclusion emphasises the need to reconcile market-oriented reforms with a multifaceted policy approach, while fostering collaboration with the private sector to ensure the long-term sustainability of higher education.</p>