P3.6B state stipends released for 120,000 college students

Wearing disposable face masks, a group of students walk along Velez St. in downtown Cagayan de Oro on Jan. 31.  (Jigger J. Jerusalem/Inquirer Mindanao)

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has released P3.6 billion to cover the partial payment of Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) for student-beneficiaries enrolled in private higher education institutions (PHEIs) for the first semester of Academic Year 2019 to 2020.

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said on Friday that an initial 120,000 students from 404 PHEIs for the first semester of the academic year will receive their TES stipends.

“The Commission is instructing these 404 private schools to immediately coordinate with their grantees on the best way to distribute TES while following their respective local government quarantine rules,” CHED chairman Prospero De Vera III said in a statement.

According to De Vera, CHED will continue to facilitate the downloading of TES grants to qualified beneficiaries in the remaining PHEIs as soon as funds are released by the DBM.

TES is a government program that provides P60,000 per school year to students from poor families in private schools and those studying in private schools in municipalities and cities without public colleges or universities.

The subsidy, made possible through the Republic Act No. 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, is used by students to pay tuition and miscellaneous fees and other education expenses.

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