UP’s public character demands that it provide accessible education for those qualified. Prior to 1989, it had a uniform tuition scheme where students paid low, reasonably priced fees. The tuition base has since been adjusted two times, and the fee structure ladderized into a bracket system.
Today, the Socialized Tuition Financial Assistance Program (STFAP) promises to make students pay only what they can afford. It applies the principle of cross subsidization: students with higher family income are required to pay more while those who come from poor families pay less. It seeks to minimize “unintended subsidies” from the government to those who can pay, and to expand financial assistance to those who are deserving.
However, STFAP has annually come under fire for both inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. Its mechanisms are vague, and alleged to be outright arbitrary. It fails to consider some idiosyncracies in the cases of applicants, and reacts slowly to changes in student’s economic statuses. Taken together with the university’s loan mechanism, the “safety net” for the underprivileged appears to be inadequate.
Instead, STFAP has ushered in high tuition to a university which cherishes democratic access as an ideal and champions affirmative action in its admissions practices. In reality, base tuition has ballooned by about 2,500%, from P40 to P1,000, in less than 20 years. High tuition, even if buffeted by scholarships and a socialized tuition system, per se serves as a disincentive for the poor and middle-income students.
High tuition coupled with mediocre financial aid awards may simply reflect a policy of maximizing tuition revenues to pursue other objectives. True enough, it was the declining budget allocation from government which prompted UP to institute a program that ensures healthy tuition income. With state funding mired in bureaucracy and government processes, UP cashes in on its liquid assets – tuition income, business income, etc. – to bankroll urgent expenses like maintenance and operations.
When the STFAP rebracketing was approved in 2006, the policy-makers recommended a triennial review; however, no report was presented in 2009, and the next report is due 2012. Safe to say, the policy has not been comprehensively revisited.
This is simply unfair, if only for the fact that we have to deal with STFAP and tuition problems every semester. STFAP precisely makes our individual cases separate, which is why we are compelled to atomize the system rather than collectivize. Still, ultimately we bear the brunt of proof that financial aid to and in the university is insufficient.
It is time that UP reviews the STFAP and tuition policy, in a manner where the students can genuinely register their anxieties and concrete suggestions. The policy review must honestly assess the goals of our tuition policy, and especially determine whether the high-base tuition we pay reduces the net cost of education for the underprivileged. As has been for several decades the central dilemma is this: can the state afford to keep us all in school?
Yes. As it appears from budget reports, with an addition P390 million in budget allocations from the government, UP can even offer its education for free.
*In the context of procedural adjustments to the STFAP program, the Office of the Student Regent (OSR) will conduct a year-long study of the policy’s results and outcomes, especially its effects on students. This June-July we will conduct a survey, a series of consultations and focus group discussions probing into students' problems with the mechanisms, procedures and output of the STFAP scheme. The OSR plans to finalize the policy study in 2012. Please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stfap-Review/226145464079798
This article appeared in the USC UP Diliman's Oblation Issue 1, June 2011 for the column "Represent and Struggle".