TUITION AT P.U.P.

STAYS | University
prexy De Guzman denies 1,500% hike,
explains K+12 impact
Polytechnic University of the Philippines President Emanuel C. De Guzman on Sunday
denied a student organization's accusation that tuition and other fees at the state-owned PUP will
rise 1,500% for the school year 2016-2017.
In an exclusive interview, De Guzman disputed an earlier claim aired in media by the PUP
Student Council.
The 1,500% tuition increase is false; all the fees being paid by our present students are intact,
including high school students from our laboratory high school, since they have an allotment
from the General Appropriations Act, De Guzman said.
Earlier, militant youth group League of Filipino Students (LFS) denounced the PUP
administration for a supposed plan to charge P16,000 in tuition and other school fees for
incoming senior high school students for academic year 2016-2017.
According to Jess Ferrera, president of PUP Central Student Council, the proposed fees are about
five times higher than what a freshman pays every year and 16 times higher than what students
from PUP Laboratory High School pay.

Ferrera noted that a PUP freshman currently pays an average of P1,500 per semester while a high
school student pays for an average P1,000 per year. The P12 per unit has remained despite
numerous attempts at increasing the cost of education.
The PUP administration has always been eager to implement a tuition hike. The new proposal
amounts to a 1,500% increase, claimed Ferrera.
Ferrera said that last March 2013, the PUP administration proposed a Socialized Tuition Fee
Scheme to standardize tuition to P1,500 per unit. In July 2014, an 830% tuition increase proposal
was again submitted by the administration. This year, they are pushing for a 458% tuition
increase in tutorial classes in addition to the proposed P16,000 new fees in the university.
PUP to absorb senior high students
However, De Guzman explained that since there will be no freshmen to the University,
they proposed to the Department of Education (DepEd) that they be allowed to absorb about
5,000 11th grade and 5,000 12th grade student senior high schoolers this coming school year.
Since there are no funds in their annual appropriations to absorb 10,000 11th and 12th grade
senior high school students, the education department allotted P22,000 per student annually.
The DepEd will allot about P22,000 per student annually but the policy of the department is
60% of the allotment should go to tuition fee, De Guzman said.
De Guzman said the PUP administration including the Board of Regents did not allow tuition
hikes in all PUP campuses, but will instead absorb 10,000 senior high schoolers to avoid loss of
jobs among teaching and non-teaching personnel from not having new entrants.
We won't be increasing fees. And if we don't absorb senior high schoolers, many faculty
members will lose their jobs. We wish to avoid that, by absorbing 10,000 senior high school
students next school year, De Guzman said.
He explained that in the implementation of K+12, the university stands to lose 12,000 freshmen,
which will result in joblessness for one year among the faculty members teaching first year
students. Likewise, there will be no sophomores in the next school year, since there were no new
entrants this year, and such which will also result in joblessness among certain faculty members,
he added.
We will be losing 12,000 freshmen and this translates to joblessness for some people. To avoid
that, we have to absorb senior high schools students in the university - to be funded by the
national government, De Guzman explained.

De Guzman said the university stands to lose about P50 million in entrance examination fees
from 100,000 applicants; aside from P150 million from tuition and other fees collected from the
freshmen and another P150 million for sophomores for two semesters.
From the 100,000 applicants wishing to enter PUP, we stand to lose P50 million because each
one pays P500. On top of this, there's an estimated P300 million per year that we collect from
tuition and other fees, said De Guzman, speaking in Filipino.
Sa unang taon pa lamang ng K+12, malaki na ang mawawala sa kami na para kaming
tinamaan ng Yolanda [Just from the first year implementation of K+12, we will lose a lot; it's
like being hit by typhoon Yolanda], he added.
De Guzman stressed that it is not PUP but the national government that will pay for the tuition of
11th and 12th grade senior high school students who will be absorbed by the university next
school year.
He said if the national government allots the appropriate funding for them in the next fiscal year,
the P12 per unit will be maintained.
As long na hindi manggagaling sa bata ang gagastusin nila, gagawin namin. Pero kung
bibigyan kami ng pondo ng gobyerno, gagawin namin na P12 per unit ang tuition fees nila, De
Guzman said.

LFS stand on tuition hike

LFS national spokesperson Charisse Baez described the PUP administrations tuition hike
proposals as outrageous. She said the P16,000 and the 458% tuition increase proposals of the
administration should be stopped at all costs.
Baez said that further denying poor students the quality education they deserve can never be
justified.
The proposed school fees are also questionable. Under this scheme, the bulk that has to be paid
are the other school fees which amount to a whopping P11,000, much bigger compared to the
base tuition of P5,000 per year, said Baez.
She noted that state universities like PUP, which failed in their attempts to impose a tuition hike
because of the student actions, resort to imposing other school fees that are much higher than
their actual tuition. According to Baez, a PUP college student pays an average of P3,646 in

other school fees per semester which is almost three times the tuition itself.
Baez added that the proposal for P16,000 school fees once more proved that Aquinos K to 12
policy is not for better education but for profit.
LFS, SKM, and other student organizations in PUP will confront the proposal in the University
Board of Regents meeting set on Tuesday, March 10. The students will walk out of their classes
to assert their disapproval.
On Friday, March 13, to mark the death anniversary of a UP coed who was believed to have
killed herself over her inability to remain in school because of poverty, the PUP students will join
counterparts in other universities across the country for a national day of rage against tuition and
other school fee increases.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/106487/tuition-at-p-u-p--stays--university-prexy-de-guzmandenies-1600-hike-explains-k12-impact