Angara favors UP tuition hike

Sen. Edgardo Angara, a former president of the University of the Philippines, and his son House Deputy Minority Leader Juan Edgardo Angara, have expressed support for the plan of the state university to increase tuition and other fees by 300 percent.

Speaking before the Bulong Pulungan press forum at the Hotel Philippine Plaza, Senator Angara said increasing the tuition of UP will benefit the school through the improvement of its facilities and the provision of scholarships to deserving students.

"A 300-percent increase in tuition maybe huge but the base is small. We are just asking the students to contribute another 30 percent," Angara said.

Angara, who served as UP president for six years, said the students’ opposition to the planned tuition hike is more ideological than economical.

"Their theory is university education should be for free. Of course, 90 percent of the costs of educating them is already borne by us (taxpayers) and the increase is only one-fourth of what is being charged by La Salle or Ateneo," he said.

The senator said that when he was still UP president, he raised the tuition from P80 to P100, which was opposed by the students. He said those who opposed the increase later realized it was justified because it was utilized to improve the dormitories and other school facilities.

"I raised P100 million. And to think that that was the time when Ninoy (Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.) was assassinated (on Aug. 21, 1983), when people didn’t want to give to UP," said Angara, who took up law at the UP College of Law and his masteral degree at the University of Michigan.

Under the scheme, tuition shall be raised from P300 to P1,000 per academic unit at the Diliman, Manila and Los Baños (Laguna) campuses, and from P200 to P600 per unit at the Baguio, Visayas and Mindanao campuses.

Congressman Angara, for his part, told The STAR that it’s to the best interest of UP to increase its tuition in light of the growing competition.

He said UP has slipped in its rankings in terms of the quality of education among top Asian universities.

Angara said the planned tuition hike will not grossly affect the students since UP is now dominated by students belonging to middle and upper income families.