Higher subsidies for college students pushed

A PHILIPPINE senator pushed to increase the yearly subsidies given to college students to prevent an increase in students dropping out due to school-related expenses.

“I believe that the P60,000 and 40,000 are the amounts that will incentivize students and cover their expenses to complete the school year,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, who heads the Basic Education Committee and a co-chairperson of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II), said in a statement.

He flagged a decrease in the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) to P27,000 a year from P60,000 for students from private colleges, while public college students now only get P20,000 from P40,000.

“My take is that the original amounts are designed to prevent students from dropping out so that they could graduate. And that’s what we want—for them to graduate instead of us just giving subsidies and then in the middle of the school year, they just drop out,” the senator said.

Mr. Gatchalian noted that previously, P20,000 of the P60,000 subsidy for students from private colleges was intended to cover tuition while the remaining P40,000 would be used for transportation food, learning materials, among others.

Based on data from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), about 37% of students dropped out in 2021-2022. The college dropout rate spiked to 41.03% in the following school year before settling at 29.4% in 2024.

CHED earlier said there are around 200,000 slots for TES every year and the commission had received about 1.6 million applications for grants in 2021 and 2023.

Under the Senate Finance committee report on the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget next year, the agency is allotted P60.25 billion. — John Victor D. Ordoñez