Young Filipino students from poor families today can feel vastly more fortunate and empowered than their elders, as they are now assured of opportunities to pursue and earn college degrees more easily, lawmakers said Thursday.
Unlike their elders who had to literally struggle to go to college, today’s youth have the dramatic game changer and equalizer in the Universal Access to Tertiary Education Act of 2017, which President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sign into law shortly, the solons behind the bill added.
The Senate-House bicameral committee approved the measure recently, adopting most of the provisions and original title of Albay Rep. Joey Salceda’s House Bill 2771, which was consolidated with two others by party-list Representatives. Sarah Jane Elago (Kabataan) and Antonio Tinio (Teachers) and merged with the Senate’s version.
The measure provides free tuition and miscellaneous fees for students in state universities (SUCs), local community colleges and technical-vocational schools accredited or managed by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. It provides equivalent subsidies and loan funds for those in private colleges and universities accredited by the Commission on Higher Education, since SUCs and local community colleges cannot accommodate all students.
Salceda said students may start availing of the new law’s benefits as early as the second semester of school year 2017-2018, adding the measure is patterned after the Albay model he pioneered when he was governor of the province for nine years until last year, when he returned to Congress. It gives priority to students from the poorest to middle-income families.
Together with infrastructure development and enhanced tourism, Salceda said higher education helped reduced Albay’s poverty incidence to 15 percent today, from 41 percent in 2007. His massive college scholarship program benefited some 89,000 beneficiaries, who earned college degrees and are now either gainfully employed or enthusiastic young entrepreneurs.
Explaining the value of the new law, Salceda said if a young student from a poor family in a desolate village “gets admitted to Management Engineering at the Ateneo de Manila, there should be no economic reason stopping him from completing his course and realizing his dream for a better life.”
“This is the gold standard of the new law, a landmark for social equality, a milestone in nation building, and a key to youth development,” he added.
The new law allocates a P20-billion subsidy for tuition and miscellaneous fees for those college, and another P10 billion as loanable funds for students from poor families, which could be used for cost of living allowances and other school expenses.
The loans will be repaid when the student-beneficiary graduates and gets employed with viable salary incomes. The law’s benefits are also available for those desiring to study beyond their baccalaureate degrees and pursue medicine, law, masteral and doctoral studies.