‘High’ study cost forces students to dump college goal
It could be attributed to a lot reasons, but the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) – Region VI saw that the high cost of studying compelled students not to be able to finish college.
CHED assistant regional director Engr. Rex Casiple said that survival rate among college students in Western Visayas stands at 32%.
The said statistics was taken from the students who enrolled in 2005 and graduated in 2009.
“Even in the previous years, the said number could deviate but it won’t go as low and as high as 3%,” he added.
Casiple said that around 192,000 students enrolled in public and private colleges last 2005 but only 38,000 graduated in 2009.
“Another factor could be that in the higher education, there are ladderized system/courses. So, after second year, they won’t proceed to third year,” he added.
After taking short-term courses, they would seek employment, even if its means underemployment on the part.
“But still, a number of students would stop because of high cost of tuition fee and the monetary costs that go with it,” he added.
Although there are already a number of state colleges and universities in the region, Casiple said that they somehow get the same percentage of survival rate: the more enrolment, the more graduates
According to CHED, in 1980, only 10 percent of college students were studying in state schools in the country.
Fourteen years later, the number went up to 21 percent and currently accounts for almost 40 percent of tertiary population.
However, a number of students could not still make it through college graduation because state universities and colleges have been accepting a certain number of students.
Further, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) also published that the School enrollment in tertiary education, as reported by CHED, has not been encouraging as it slowed down from 1999 to 2002, and then dropped gradually starting 2002 to 2003, with negative 0.8 percent growth in 2004-2005 for both public and private schools. Except for the big jump in 1998-1999, enrollment has been sliding down, thereafter.
NSCB added that even in public tertiary education enrollment even in public schools shows a decelerating trend, weakening to negative 1.2 percent growth in 2004-2005, despite the lower cost of public education. In the case of private schools, the decline started as early as 2002.
Although the trend in the number of graduates continues to post annual increases, except in 1997-1998 and 2003-2004, disturbing is the data on the ratio of graduates to enrollment for tertiary education, which stands at 16 to less than 18 percent from 1994 to 2005.
