Budget cuts hound free tuition program for college students

Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act is a blessing for many Filipino students struggling with the high cost of education.

Under the law, select students are given subsidy ranging from P40,000 to P60,000 on top of free tuition and other fees.

However, after the budget for free tertiary education was cut by over 16 percent to P35 billion in 2020 from P42 billion in 2019, university administrators and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) are hard-pressed to continue providing financial assistance to thousands of poor Filipino students.

In an interview on Winnie Monsod’s Bawal ang Pasaway,  Carmelita Yadao-Sison, executive director of the UniFAST Secretariat which processes the grant of subsidies, said the overlapping calendars of the academic year and the fiscal year are to be blamed for the budget cut.

“Hindi namin magastos ‘yung pera gawa ng ang fiscal year, hindi jive sa academic year. So how can we pay out when the SUCs (state universities and colleges) have not billed us yet?” Sison said.

The UniFAST (Unified Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Act) Secretariat is the CHED body that oversees all matters related to student financial assistance programs.

The  law covers the tuition and fees of students enrolled in 112 state universities and colleges (SUCs), 78 local universities and colleges (LUCs), and all technical-vocation education and training (TVET) programs registered under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

At present, the government provides free tuition to an estimated 1.3 million students and additional Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) to around 300,000 students who are part of the “listahanan” or official record of the country’s poorest families updated yearly by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

To avail of the free tertiary education tuition, students must pass the entrance exam of their chosen SUC or CHED-recognized local university or college and complete their undergraduate studies within four or five years.

Sison said the law needs to be amended to exempt students from richer families from availing free tuition in order for more poor students to benefit from the program.

According to the University of the Philippines’ (UP) Student Affairs office, only five students from the entire UP System opted out of the free tuition program.

One of them is alias “Nathan” who said he opted out primarily because of a “very vague” condition in the law that requires beneficiaries of free tuition to render an unspecified service for a certain number of hours.

“Secondly, we have the financial capacity to (pay). It’s not too much. If you can help in some way, then you should,” he added. he said. —Julia Mari Ornedo/LDF, GMA News