P350,429.28—this is the cost of sending a child to DLSU for one term, if one were to ask the Student Council (SC) in 1991.
Twenty eight years ago, The LaSallian published an article titled Can you still afford to send your kids to La Salle in 2019? which projected the cost of enrollment in the University by 2019 based on a continuous tuition fee increase (TFI). The piece, written by Gary Mariano, who served as the publication’s adviser at the time, highlighted the then inflation rate as a prominent factor for the extreme estimates taken by the SC, projecting tuition to grow by 15 percent every year.
Fast forward to the present, Mariano, who currently serves as a faculty under the Communication Department, shares with The LaSallian that, at the time, he did not use robust economic analysis when he wrote the article, but instead he approached the topic out of his mere interest. “The 1991 piece was meant to be a fun/think piece rather than a research article. As such, I did not use any hard economic data, if I recall right,” he elaborates.
Going back
The article from 1991 cited that the SC was attempting to gain sympathy from the student body on its anti-TFI campaign by illustrating that the future cost would reach astronomical amounts. At the time, the tuition fee per trimester was pegged at P7,000, which, according to the SC’s estimates, would be about 50 times larger in 28 years. Fast forward to 2019, the average tuition fee for an ID 117 student from the College of Liberal Arts amounts to less than P70,000 a term, only 10 times larger than it was almost three decades ago.
If the predicted tuition fees were true and the cost reached the P300,000 mark, Mariano suggests in his article that parents may consider availing of scholarships and financial plans for their children. He also suggests enrolling their children elsewhere, suggesting as far as the Philippine Military Academy or even in a seminary.
However, the extravagant estimate of 15 percent per year is not without merit and is in fact a reflection of the time period. During the 1990s, the Philippines was in the midst of recovering from the economic and political hardships experienced in the decade prior.
Apart from this, the 90s also saw many natural disasters such as earthquakes and landslides occurring across the country, accompanied by rotating blackouts. Attempts at planning and structuring the government’s budgets for the country were also made by the then Aquino Administration after taking over the regime of Former President Ferdinand Marcos. It comes as no surprise then that the country’s monthly inflation rate soared to as high as 20 percent, while its annual inflation rate was at 19.4 percent.
In 2018, the last recorded average inflation rate was 5.2 percent, markedly lower than it was in the 90s, despite being already a step up from the inflation rates in previous years, specifically the 2.9 percent inflation rate in 2017, 1.3 percent in 2016, and 0.7 percent in 2015.
Looking at the present
Adi Briones, University Student Government (USG) Executive Treasurer, shares that only the student sector in the Multi-Sectoral Consultative Committee on Tuition Fee have agreed to have a zero to three percent increase in the upcoming academic year AY as this covers all the points addressed from the student body survey distributed in the past year. An online campaign was also launched on the fourth week of January where an on-the-ground survey last January 23 was initiated to ask Lasallians about their views on the University facilities, academics, and USG services.
When asked about how the USG ensures that tuition hikes are reasonable to students, Briones cites having to always consider external factors such as the inflation rate in formulating an amount of increase that is just enough to offset such. Tangible improvements and promises made by the administration are also factors of consideration for a justifiable increase.
Briones also raises the fact that a minimal increase in the tuition fee will also likely result to minimal improvements in the University. “We cannot propose a minimal increase and expect improvement in our facilities [and] in our academics, so we really try to strike a balance between the affordability of our education and the improvement as well [of the] quality of education in La Salle,” he further explains.
TFI at a glance
While increases in tuition fees in recent years have been the subject of debate among various sectors, previous academic years paint a very different picture. Data gathered by the USG on historical TFI data show that during AY 1991-1992, around the time the article was written, tuition soared to 13.48 percent for freshmen and 11.48 percent for upperclassmen, which were above the rates seen in the prior year. In AY 1990-1991, TFI for freshmen was at 11.80 percent, while upperclassmen saw an 9.8 percent increase. These values are more or less in line with the assumptions made by the SC at the time.
However, AY 2004-2005 was the beginning of the most significant decrease in percentage for freshmen, dropping from double-digits to a single-digit value. In the year prior, the TFI was at 11.20 percent—it was only at seven percent afterwards. In the succeeding years, the percentage for freshmen TFI percentage has fallen in the range of three to six percent. By comparison, freshmen saw a five percent increase in their tuition in AY 2016-2017, as based on the latest available data provided by the USG.
A helping hand
Admitting that the cost of a Lasallian education is still not affordable to the common person, Briones reiterates the need for balance in quality and accessibility. Part of the USG’s current initiatives is raising requests to the administration to open more scholarship programs for those who are financially challenged.
Last February 1, the USG launched their financial assistance programs to tend to these concerns. Through the financial assistance program the student government aims to offer more scholarship grants, allowances, and other subsidy services in hopes of making DLSU services more affordable to those who are financially challenged.
Students’ concerns
Maegan Estuar (III, AB-CAM) finds that the tuition fee increases are both good and bad in their own ways. “It might be good if they actually improve all facilities like the computers [and] classrooms,” she says. However, she notes that as it is now, people are already having a hard time coping with the tuition fees.
For Sofia Leda (I, CIV), TFIs have had a huge impact on her budget. However, she laments that increases are inevitable, but hopes that “the facilities and classrooms in the University will be worth every penny she pays for.”
ERRATUM: In the February print issue of The LaSallian, it was stated that all members of the MSCCTF agreed to the zero to three percent tuition fee increase. Only the student sector had in fact agreed to this change. The publication sincerely apologizes for the error.
