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ANTICIPATING a drop in enrollment for the coming school year, University of Visayas officials yesterday announced that tuition for most of their tertiary courses will be reduced.
“There will be a 10 percent decrease in tuition in the coming school year,” said Joselito “Jiji” Gullas University of the Visayas (UV) assistant vice president for finance and administration.
Gullas said that while there is no significant drop in enrollment just yet, the tuition reduction is the university's response to stem the possible tide of dropouts as a result of the worsening economic crisis.
“Everyday we read the news about factories closing, OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) coming back. We had an emergency meeting a week ago...(we decided) there should be a ray of sunshine at this time,” he told reporters at a press conference yesterday morning.
In reducing the tuition, university officials said there will be a “freeze” in the salaries of teaching and non-teaching personnel.
There would also be no further infrastructure development that will be implemented at least for a year.
“Whatever savings we get from there, we will pass this on to the students just so they can go on studying for another year,” said Gullas.
The decrease in tuition is applicable to all courses except medicine, dentistry and graduate school wherein many enrollees are foreigners.
“The foreign students are currently paying the premium tuition. They can still afford the tuition,” said Gullas.
He admitted that reducing the tuition is a “band aid” cure to the financial problems of the students.
“But it is better than doing nothing at all,” he said.
The student population in UV including its satellite campuses of Mandaue, Toledo and Dalaguete is about 20,000 while the number of teaching staff is at least 400 with about 180 non-teaching staff.
Gullas noted that there had been a steady increase in the number of promissory notes that are submitted by the students.
“The number of promissory notes that we have received has increased, especially at this time when the final examination is near,” he said.
Gullas assured that they will not cancel the scholarship programs of the school.
“We have one thousand plus students would not be phased out,” he said.
The returning OCWs, meanwhile, can take advantage of the reduction in tuition and are encouraged to take courses during their stay in the country.
“For one more year they can be more marketable,” Gullas said.
“For example if they are mechanical engineers, we have a program that we applied with CHED (Commission on Higher Education), a ladderized program that they can take to become marine engineers,” he added.
