451 colleges, universities eye tuition hikes for 2013 school opening

MANILA, Philippines — Some 451 colleges and universities out of the total 1,800 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the country intend to increase tuition and other fees in the coming school year.

These schools have formally informed the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) through its regional offices of their plan to increase either only the tuition or only the miscellaneous fees, or both.

CHEd chairperson Patricia Licuanan: Alarmed PHOTO FROM CHED.GOV.PH

In the National Capital Region, some 90 HEIs have formally advised CHEd of their intention to increase school fees.

The number of schools that will actually raise their tuition and other fees however may still go down when CHEd acts on the applications by April.

Under the guidelines issued in January 2012 under Memo 3 series 2012, CHEd requires HEIs to hold a public consultation to explain the planned fee increases, assure CHEd that 70 per cent of the increase will go to personnel salaries while 20 per cent will go to school upgrading or operations, and then submit all the documents to the CHEd regional offices in time.

The consultations for the planned fee increases for the next school year must have been held not later than February 28, according to the guidelines.

Schools must submit all supporting documents by April 1 while CHED regional offices are supposed to act on the petitions not later than April 15.

Before the 2012 tuition guidelines, consultation was not strictly required.

In an interview, CHEd Chairperson Patricia Licuanan said they have been looking at further revising the guidelines to not only require consultation but also to strictly check on the justification given by the schools for the increase.

“Right now the way it’s implemented is, if certain conditions are met, it is seldom that schools are denied for (reasons of) justification. Often they are denied because they are late or because they did not follow the right process,” Licuanan admitted.

“But what really is a fair justification for increasing tuition? We’re trying to get the experts to help us there,” she added.

Licuanan said they have asked the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) to tap economic analysts and education experts and help CHEd assess the cost of education and identify a “reasonable formula” for tuition increases depending on the region.

“That (formula) we don’t have,” she said.

She deemed the “70-20-10” formula on the distribution of school fees (the 10 per cent would be for the school’s return of investment) as not unreasonable but said it could be further refined.

Some schools are able to justify their need to increase their student fees compared to other schools, according to the CHEd chairman.

“Because what is actually happening is we don’t distinguish as much among schools, and maybe we should be doing that. But we don’t have the formula. At the moment it will be arbitrary,” Licuanan said.

She said CHEd would also look into allegations of “token consultations” done by some school administrators.

“On the one hand consultation doesn’t necessarily mean that they got what they wanted. But on the other hand it has to be a real consultation (where) they had a chance to object and reason out why they think this is not correct,” she said.

She said any new tuition guidelines would no longer be implemented this coming school year, but probably in the next.