Fairness and UP

PINOY KASI


Fairness and UP
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 02:36am (Mla time) 01/24/2007

Published on page A11 of the January 24, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THERE’S a lot of shouting and jumping these days on campuses of the University of the Philippines (UP), as students and parents check out the results of UP’s College Admissions Test (UPCAT).

Some 70,000 students took the UPCAT last August, but less than 10 percent have been admitted, based on their performance in UPCAT as well as their grades in high school, and certain equity factors such as socioeconomic status and geography.

Not all of those who passed will enter UP. The richer students have options, sometimes choosing to go to one of several exclusive private universities where they’ve also earned admission.

For students from middle- and low-income families, UP is what they and their parents have dreamed about, a way to get a top-rate education at relatively low tuition. Relatively. Last December, UP’s Board of Regents approved an increase in tuition and miscellaneous fees, which could affect the decisions of some families about pushing through with a bright child in college.

STFAP

I have a strong feeling that many people are unaware of UP’s Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program (STFAP), so I thought I’d share the details here, together with the new fees, to assure wavering parents that they do have options.

The new fee structure varies depending on the campus. Group I campuses -- Diliman, Los Baños and Manila -- will have higher tuition than Group II campuses -- Baguio, Mindanao, San Fernando and Visayas (with campuses in Cebu and Iloilo and Tacloban).

A new STFAP has been drawn up with the new fees. Bracket A refers to those with annual family incomes of more than P1 million. Students from these families will pay the full-cost tuition, which comes to P1,500 a unit in Group I campuses and P1,000 in Group II campuses.

In Bracket B will be students whose annual family income ranges from P500,001 to P1,000,000. They will pay P1,000 a unit in Group I campuses and P600 in Group II campuses.

Bracket C students come from families with annual incomes of P135,001 to P500,000. They will pay P600 per unit in Group I campuses and P400 in Group II campuses.

Next are the Bracket D students, with family annual incomes of P80,001 to P135,000. They will pay P300 per unit in Group I campuses and P200 per unit in Group II.

Students from brackets A, B, C and D will all have to pay full miscellaneous and laboratory fees, which will be P2,000 per semester in Diliman and Los Baños; P1,950 in Manila; P1,405 in Baguio, San Fernando and the Visayas; and P1,640 in Mindanao.

Finally, there’s Bracket E for students whose families earn less than P80,000 a year. They will not pay any tuition, miscellaneous or laboratory fees, and they will get a stipend of P12,000 per semester.

Equity

It’s never easy working out a socialized tuition system. A group of faculty members that includes, among others, Dr. Maris Diokno and Dr. Cynthia Bautista, has expressed concern over Brackets C and D, wondering if this new system puts the middle class at a disadvantage. Their position paper did get me to do some calculations: a bracket D student on a 15-unit load would have to pay P4,500 in tuition, plus P2,000 in miscellaneous and laboratory fees for a total of P6,500 per semester or P13,000 a year, excluding the summer session. If his or her family earns about P135,000 a year, the upper limit of that bracket, the P13,000 would take up almost 10 percent of family income. Given how the middle class spends so much more than the rich, percentage-wise, for food and rent, even this subsidized tuition could become a serious burden, especially if the family has several children who are still attending school.

The continuing discussions and debates do show how concerned the university is about issues of fairness and equity. That was why opinions were divided over the tuition fee increase itself. My view is that the current fee structure, which dates back to 1989, has become unfair. What happened was that upper-class students were paying full fees that came to something like P20,000 a year. In effect, taxes squeezed out of the poor and the middle class were subsidizing the costs of giving the best education to the children of bank presidents and "hacenderos" [plantation owners].

I’ve written, passionately, about the need for more government support of education, and especially for a state university. But I should point out, too, that even in countries where the state is generous, and the main provider of college education, there is a streaming process that determines if students will be allowed to go on to college in the first place. Depending on their potentials, these eligible students will be streamed into different colleges, with only the brightest ending up in a national university.

UP faculty and students are reluctant to use language like “brightest” and “best” because it sounds so elitist, but rather than worry about political correctness, let’s get real and look at who our “iskolar ng bayan” [people’s scholars] are.

We need to do more to get students from the middle- and lower-income groups. If our fees scare off the few middle- and low-income families that dare to hope for a child in UP, we will end up with a state university that will exclude the poor.

Fair is fair. I would think that at UP, we could live with our reduced budgets if we saw government channeling more money to improve public education at the elementary and secondary education, eventually helping more of their graduates to make it into state universities, including UP.

And for those who do get into UP, we will have to find ways to keep them there and see them graduate. I worry again about the inequities. When upper middle-class students need money, they can work part-time in a call center to supplement their allowances. The poorer students are handicapped when they compete for such jobs, and have to resort to student loans, or undergraduate assistantships that pay P20 an hour, for a maximum of P2,000 a month. Graduate students get the grand amount of P4,000 a month.

There’s always so much uncertainty for middle- and low-income students at UP. Incidental expenses turn out to be not so incidental; textbooks alone, for example, are enough to wipe out a budget. And just one family emergency -- a catastrophic illness, a death, or even a delayed remittance from a parent working overseas -- can force the student to take a leave of absence, some never to return. Each of these dropouts is a loss not just for the family but for the nation.