Reducing dropout risk in private colleges
House Bill (HB) 7922 containing the enhancements to Republic Act 10931, has just been approved on third and final reading at the House of Representatives. This bill will significantly increase the chances of poor and deserving students to graduate from their college studies in private colleges.
One key goal of HB 7922 is to make sure each beneficiary does not miss any payments of tuition and other school fees. The weakness of the ATM means of disbursement is sometimes the subsidy is spent on expenses other than the tuition and other school fees, leading to dropping out of the beneficiary. The voucher system significantly reduces the dropout risk, especially in the provinces.
HB 7922 fills in the gaps in the current Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES). For example, there is the widespread problem of when there are no campuses of state universities and colleges (SUCs) and local universities and colleges (LUCs) in the locality of the beneficiary. In most cases, the SUC and LUC campuses are far from where the beneficiaries reside, and the nearest accessible schools are all private colleges. The voucher system is the more economic and cost-effective way of providing access to higher education instead of building or establishing more campuses of SUCs and LUCs.
As a filing author of one of the bills consolidated into HB 7922, I thank Speaker Martin Romualdez, the Committee on Higher and Technical Education, Committee on Appropriations, and Committee on Rules because their decisions prioritized HB 7922.
HB 7922 adds the voucher system method to the different ways the national government implements the TES program. With vouchers, the government subsidy is directly disbursed to the private college into the account of the beneficiary. In the current TES ways, the subsidies are either in the form of student loans or in the form of electronic cash to an ATM account in the name of the beneficiary.
With the voucher system, Congress, the Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority ensure that the subsidy is spent entirely as payment for the school fees and other educational needs of the qualified poor and deserving beneficiaries. The voucher has a tuition and school fees component, a second component for allowances for books, school supplies, and transportation to and from school, and a third component for room and boarding costs.
The exact nominal values of each voucher shall be determined later by the UniFAST Board after a commissioned study.
With HB 7922, the national government is enabled to indirectly financially assist the private colleges while also reducing the dropout risk. Consequently, the private colleges are assisted in keeping the faculty employed and their facilities maintained and operating.
There are 1,729 private colleges and universities nationwide, while there are only 667 campuses of public colleges. In other words, for every public college, there are about two private colleges. There are about 1.83 million students enrolled in private colleges and universities compared to 1.57 million students in different public higher education institutions. These numbers do not yet include the enrolment figures for technical vocational institutions.