MORE college students are expected to move to
state-run schools this year due to increased tuition in private
higher educational institutions (HEI) but they will have to
compete with thousands of others with the same plan for limited
slots, Kabataang Pinoy president Dion Carlo Cerrafon said.
Citing Commission on Higher Education
records, Cerrafon said only 10 percent of college students were
in state-run schools in 1980, but this rose to 21 percent in
1994 and to almost 40 percent at present.
The hitch, he said, is that state-run
universities and colleges cannot accommodate all the
transferees.
"Many of them will find themselves dropping
out of college. There are no more rooms in state schools either.
State universities and colleges are confronted by similar
problems. Poor education spending and annual budget cutbacks
force state-run schools to impose enrolment quotas and increase
fees, forcing many state scholars to leave."
There are currently 112 state universities
and colleges (SUCs), 64 of these colleges operated by local
government units as against 1,800 private HEIs. This year, SUCs
have a budget of P20.8 billion which roughly translates to an
annual subsidy of P24,000 per student. Of the total amount,
P15.4 billion will pay for the salaries of faculty members and
employes.
Cerrafon said that although SUCs collect
lower tuition than private schools, tuition rate and
miscellaneous fees in state schools and universities have seen
the biggest increases in recent years, making it also
inaccessible to ordinary students.
Last year, the UP hiked its tuition by 300
percent, from P300 to P1,000 per unit, while Eulogio Amang
Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology implemented a 600
percent tuition hike, from P15 per unit to P100 per, resulting
in a 50 percent drop in enrollment.
The country's biggest state school in terms
of population, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines,
was also poised to hike its tuition by 525 percent last year but
had to shelve the plan due to massive student protests. It would
have increased tuition from P12.50 to P75 per unit.
Cerrafon said state schools are also forced to accept only a
limited number of students due to budget cuts. Last year, some
66,000 high school graduates took the UP College Admission Test
but only around 12,000 were admitted. The same is true in PUP
where only 10,000 to 13,000 are admitted from more than 50,000
applicants. - Ashzel Hachero
