The future of free college education
One of the landmark legislations passed into law under the Duterte administration is The Unified Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Act, or UniFAST — also known as Republic Act No. 10687.
The UniFAST was fully implemented in 2018 when the government allocated a budget of PHP40 billion for the school year 2018-2019 — PHP16 billion for Free Higher Education, another PHP16 billion for the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) for needy students, PHP7 billion for Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET), PHP1 billion for the Student Loan Program. Starting the school year 2018-2019, around 1.3 million students did not pay their tuition and miscellaneous fees. (www.pna.gov.ph).
The government released a PHP16 billion fund for the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) that year. TES is given to poor but deserving students enrolled in the 112 SUCs and 78 LUCs whose names appear in the Listahanan 2.0 or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) list of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The UniFast involves huge budgetary amounts per year. In August, 2022, Senator Risa Hontiveros accused the Commission on Higher Education of mismanaging the funds after the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged almost P7 billion worth of ‘questionable releases’ under the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) scholarship agency.Hontiveros said that UniFAST is supposed to be the answer to the gap in education for millions of underprivileged youth. And yet the program is stained with suspicious overpayments and double reimbursements. “Dapat todo-bantay tayo sa budget natin dito lalo na sa panahon na maraming nahihirapan magbayad ng tuition. This could be just the tip of the iceberg of dubious practices in CHED-UniFAST,” Hontiveros added.
Hontiveros’ resolution also revealed UniFAST’s overpayment of P131 million to certain SUCs, and P251 million to already fully subsidized LUCs in direct violation of RA10931. She said that the COA report is “enough to show that the agency’s lapses need to be explained.”
In September, 2022, CHED said that it could not accommodate the request of 205,584 students seeking financial assistance through one of its programs after it failed to secure additional funding under the 2023 budget. CHED Chairman admitted that their funds are just sufficient to cover continuing beneficiaries. Due to funding problems, the Commission was forced not to accept new applications.
With only a few years after its first implementation, the supposedly good piece of legislation encountered the current funding mess.
This situation now brings us to the question: How long will the program last? They say things that mean a lot to us eventually cease to exist. Hope it is not too soon.