De La Salle University (DLSU) has taken it upon itself to be a world-class research university and a university for the poor. But with two competing goals, can the University really balance the need for high tuition fees to fund research projects with the need to make a Lasallian education accessible to the middle and lower class?
The parents association (PUSO) deliberates on tuition fee increases. PUSO invites representatives from the different sectors of the University (students, administrators, faculty, and staff) to form a multi-sectoral committee that should reach a tuition fee increase consensus.
To balance the quality of education and its affordability, the decision and final figure has to come from the aforementioned commitee. Mandates for tuition fee increases are not always set in stone.
DLSU President and Chancellor Br. Ricky Laguda FSC explains that tuition fee increases are necessary due to inflation. Br. Ricky, however, adds that tuition increases based on the inflation rate is not enough because of the competitive rates in hiring and retaining good faculty, upgrading research labs, providing the best facilities and tools to adapt to the changing needs of the learners today, which are also key factors in providing quality education to the students.
With goal of providing accessible education, the idea of decreasing tuition fees is brought to light, but such action may prove to be disadvantageous for the University. Director of the Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business studies and University Fellow Dr. Tereso Tullao Jr. explains that quality education is an investment good that has increasing value.
Tullao furthers, “I think it is inequitable to reduce the tuition fee. The reason is, the prices of all commodities are increasing and yet, prices of educational services are declining. So in effect, the faculty members and the staff are the ones shouldering the cost of the education of the students, and the students are getting this education not because it is a consumption good, but it is an investment good.”
Tullao argues that slashing tuition is unjustifiable since the faculty and the staff are not the ones that would reap the student’s investment from the Lasallian education they will and have been receiving.
As such, balancing the need to make a Lasallian education has become harder for DLSU. Moreover, DLSU is a private university that needs to ensure that the students who are paying for their tuitions receive their money’s worth.
“DLSU will always try its best to make quality education accessible.” Br. Ricky explains. The administration had set a goal of achieving a 20 percent full time equivalent of scholars (FTE). Br. Ricky informs that this term, DLSU has achieved 22 percent FTE scholars because of the Vaugirard and the Gokongwei scholarship programs.
The branding of DLSU as a “School for the Elite” has always been played on as a stereotype for Lasallians and as a means of attacking the University as a University for the economically favored.
Tullao argues in a different context. He explains, “It is a school for the elite. Not by intention, that’s a fact. Elite in the sense that they are the intellectual elites [of the country].”
Br. Ricky adds, “There is nothing wrong in being an ‘elite’ school if being an elitist means a group of people who are known for their [Lasallian] core values.”
