School owners scored for tuition 'dagdag-bawas'

Militant youth groups on Tuesday accused private school owners of engaging in their own "dagdag-bawas" (an election cheating scheme) by padding profits through tuition hikes. Kabataan party-list president Raymond Palatino said private colleges appear to have perfected their own "dagdag-bawas machinery" with yearly tuition hikes. "While candidates accuse each other manipulating election results to clinch victory, private schools owners and administrators are padding tuition and other fees to jack up their profits," he said. He said partial reports of tuition hikes involving hundreds of schools all over the country only confirm what they have feared for some time. Palatino said the suspension of the tuition cap early this year will be used to increase tuition beyond the inflation rate, which will lead to bigger tuition and miscellaneous fee hikes this school year. The group accused the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) and the Arroyo administration of conniving to lift the cap. "This gave private schools bigger room for 'tuition padding' (dagdag) which served as a pay off for the much need school owners' support for administration candidates," Palatino said. About 80 private colleges and universities around the country already have the consent of the CHED to implement tuition fee increases. CHED chair Carlito Puno earlier told dzBB radio that the price adjustment this year will range from five to eight percent. For their part, several schools petitioning the increase blamed rising inflation for the tuition hike. Others, meanwhile, said they have less funds to pay for the salaries of employees and teachers. Meanwhile, Palatino called on senators- and congressmen-elect to translate their electoral agenda to practice by prioritizing the solution of the "tuition hike crisis." "This will be the best opportunity for them to prove to us that they are really for the youth and they participated in this elections to defend and uphold the interest of young Filipinos, particularly for education," he said. He added that tuition and other fee increases in these times of economic hardships and poverty are clearly uncalled for, and only make college education more elusive to young Filipinos. "We call on our next set of lawmakers to join the students' clamor for an end to unabated tuition and other fee increases and an immediate investigation on the suspension of the tuition cap," Palatino said. - GMANews.TV