After UP Diliman, UPLB suspends fee collection for undergrads

The University of the Philippines Los Baños campus in Laguna. (PHOTO FROM UPLB.EDU.PH)

SAN PEDRO CITY, Laguna — The University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) is suspending the collection of tuition from its undergraduate students, with classes set to begin on August 2.

“As instructed by Chancellor Fernando C. Sanchez Jr., tuition fee collection for undergraduate students for the semester of AY 2017-2018 shall be suspended until further notice,” read a memorandum issued by UPLB Vice Chancellor Portia Lapitan on Wednesday.

In a phone interview, Lapitan said no fees, including miscellaneous and laboratory fees, would be collected from undergraduate students “until there is clarity” on the proposed measure to subsidize tertiary education.

Enrollment period at UPLB is set to start on Thursday. Lapitan said the office of the UP president would issue the guidelines “soon.”

Earlier, UP Diliman also announced the suspension of fee collection pending the law on the universal access to quality tertiary education.

The House of Representatives had approved an P8-billion budget from the pork barrel fund to cover the eight UP constituent universities and other state universities and colleges.

“It is still not yet clear with the national government so while everything is in limbo, we decided to suspend the collection. We think that would be easier than giving refunds later on,” Lapitan said.

UPLB has a student population of around 12,700 with 11,000 of them undergraduate students.

The combined tuition that UP collects is around P2 billion, but Lapitan said UP’s share from the national government allocation “is not enough to support” the tuition of all its students.  SFM