WHETHER we like it or not, this seems to a season of increases in our country… increase in prices of prime commodities, increase in taxi fare and other cost of transporting of people and goods, increase in the rates of services and what have you.
The latest “bad” news is that the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has just approved the request of 30 private schools of higher education to increase their basic tuition fees. This is in the Davao Region alone, not counting the other areas since the request for tuition increase is nationwide.
This latest development will surely make many parents currently sending their children to college spend some sleepless nights worrying over the adverse effects of the tuition increase on the future of their kids. They would be making computations of the impact of tuition hike on their ability to continue sending the kids to college.
Ironically, the government just recently approved free college education and allocating billions of pesos to fund the program. However, free tertiary education is only true to government owned and operated colleges and universities. Only students who can pass the rigid entrance examinations and satisfy the required criteria can avail themselves of the privilege of being a college scholars. The number of scholars to be accommodated will also depend on the budget of the government schools.
Meanwhile, private tertiary education is still as expensive as can be.Truth to tell, operating private colleges and universities is in reality a very profitable venture. No wonder we are witnessing multi-billionaire businessmen and companies buying up private schools and operating them bigtime.
Of course, the situation overall is a lot better than the miserable situation of our tertiary education in the past. But there remains a lot to be desired. Now we have a lot of government schools and politicians offering scholarships. We can only pray and hope for the situation to improve… that someday we will have more colleges and universities to produce qualified graduates and more jobs for them to occupy.
Meantime, some real belt-tightening in our lifestyle is in order.
