MANILA, Philippines - Around one million poor but deserving students will be able to enjoy free tuition in state universities and colleges next year if the P8-billion additional allocation granted by the Senate to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is approved in the final version of the 2017 national budget.
Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto, who introduced the P8-billion increase in the CHED’s budget for the Higher Education Support Fund, said this would cover the tuition of poor enrollees in SUCs but not the other school fees such as dormitory and laboratory fees.
Recto said the fund would be distributed among 114 SUCs based on the amount of tuition each school was projected to collect next year as reported in the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing document.