Six years ago, Congress passed Republic Act 10931, The Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. At the Duterte Legacy Summit in 2022, it was reported that more than two million students from some 220 higher educational institutions were beneficiaries of the program since its inception in 2018.

Amid the hearings and deliberations on the proposed national budget for 2024, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno called for a review of the free tuition policy in state universities and colleges while describing it as “unwieldy, inefficient, and wasteful.”  Chairman Prospero de Vera of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) defended the program, as it has enabled those coming from the poorest families to obtain a college education. Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said that free college education is limited only to poor but deserving students. He pointed out that the ₱51.1 billion allocation for free tertiary education is less than one percent of the proposed national budget.

Secretary Diokno called attention to the 36.83 percent dropout rate in school year 2020-2021, as reported by CHED in the budget hearings, noting that this was “an indicator of wastefulness.” Chairman De Vera attributed this to the pressures brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic on poor families afflicted by joblessness of their breadwinners.

In fine, Secretary Diokno’s critique on the free tuition scheme is just one of the points he has raised in calling for education reforms: “First, focus on strengthening the K-12 program; second, filter, through a nationwide test, those who should be entitled to free education; third, allow those who passed the nationwide exam and are entitled to ‘free’ education to use their entitlement (a four-year voucher) to enter or reject their assigned state university [or] choose an accredited private university; and [lastly] reduce the number of existing SUCs over time through mergers.”

The Department of Education is presently piloting a streamlined K to 10 curriculum after taking into account noted deficiencies in its implementation. A second-phase review on senior high school (Grades 11 and 12) is in the offing.

On the issue of testing, Chairman De Vera has cautioned on replicating the inequities arising from the design of the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT), noting that, apparently, it favors those who come from affluent families. This latter observation has been echoed by Rep. Rodriguez who cited concerned citizens’ claim that the University of the Philippines (UP) has become the “university of the rich” because the parking lots in its Diliman campus in Quezon City are lined with high-end cars and sport utility vehicles during classes. 

On closer analysis, the CHED points out the significant number of beneficiaries from regions with high poverty incidence such as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, Caraga, Zamboanga Peninsula and Eastern Visayas.

As the post-pandemic recovery phase accelerates, government policymakers will do well to continually assess and ascertain how to get optimum returns from taxpayers’ investment on public education. Higher education is a channel for those living in the margins to swim into the mainstream of social opportunity.