Tuition seen to shoot up
The government has lifted the ceiling on tuition increases allowing around 1,200 private schools and 112 state universities and colleges to set their rates for the coming school year.
Dr. Carlito Puno, chair of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), said in a press conference yesterday that all private and public state colleges and universities will be allowed to set their rates after the commission decided to implement a one-year suspension on the tuition rate ceiling.
Puno said the cap on tuition fee increases was lifted because "tertiary educational institutions are losing their global competitiveness."
He pointed out the University of the Philippines, the country's premier university only ranks 180th among the schools in Asia while other top schools like De La Salle University and Ateneo landed 280th and 400th, respectively.
"We need to spend more for education," said Puno.
The CHED has created an ad hoc committee that will study the current tuition scheme of college institutions and make the appropriate recommendations within the school year.
For the past three years, tuition increases have been pegged to a maximum equivalent to the inflation rate. The rate was 6.2 percent last year and 4.4 percent this year.
But Puno said using the inflation rate to set the limits for tuition increases has been found to be "counter-productive" especially for schools charging lower rates.
"How can private colleges and universities continue to exist (base on this set-up) when they are required to pay 10 percent (of the tuition increase proceeds) to their employees?" said Puno.
He said they plan to adopt a "flexible" formula which would use absolute figures in determining tuition increase instead of percentage.
Puno said they are "optimistic that the rate of tuition will not shoot up."
He said they expect more than 50 percent of private schools will not raise their tuition higher than 6 percent of their current rates while 30 percent of schools will increase their fees by less than 10 percent.
"Administrators know that it will make them commercially unviable (if they increase their fees significantly)," said Puno.
Private schools are losing 1 percent of their enrollment yearly to SUCs and many schools will not opt to increase their fees despite the lifting of the tuition cap, according to Puno.
He cited the case Cited in Eastern Visayas none of the private schools will raise their fees next school year.
In Western Visayas, only 28 of the 134 schools or (20 percent) will raise their fees. Majority of the schools will raise to around 6 percent.