A RISE in the cost of living means a rise in tuition.
This is the logic of the UST administration as students brace for another 15 per cent increase in their tuition come school year.
UST Vice Rector for Finance Fr. Melchor Saria, O.P. says the latest increase is needed to cover for the faculty’s salary increase as demanded by the CBA. This shows the vicious cycle of private education in the Philippines. While state colleges and universities (SCU) are hardly regulated (they seem to sprout everywhere), private schools are so regulated to the point that the state can dictate that 70 per cent of the tuition increase should go to faculty salaries. Because of this stricture, no wonder many private schools have closed. But has any SCU closed despite corruption, mismanagement or even low enrollment?
Be that as it may, the administration must impress upon the students that the money they pay to better compensate the faculty is working in their (the students’) favor. This means faculty instruction that is effective, reasonable, professional and Christian-motivated. Fr. Saria promises to give the pink slip to inefficient, ineffective, abusive teachers. This we got to see.
The increase will also cover new infrastructure and maintenance on campus. Ostensibly new facilities and systems, like digital identification and multimedia rooms, are needed to foster quality education. But surely the race for quality education doesn’t mean milking the student’s pockets dry.
It is also important to remember that quality education doesn’t necessarily mean new buildings and new technologies. The fierce competition among the top schools should not be an excuse for “edifice complex” and “gizmo mania” to luxuriate. Surely the University must be partial to wise and sound investments.
What is worrisome is that as the University steadily increases its tuition, it assumes more and more the image of elitism, when in fact, its original and primary strength and distinction is its non-elitist, democratic, “masa pero may sinasabi” image. This is especially true when UST is contrasted with the other top universities like Ateneo and La Salle, which are only too ready to increase their tuition a hundredfold if only to keep their snobbish image.
The trend is inescapable. As UST increases its tuition, it melds with the other so-called Ivy League institutions, the schools for the rich, the wannabe-rich, the socially prominent and the social climbers. UST becomes generic and faceless.
Surely something is lost when a Catholic university sets the tuition bar higher for students who are already scratching the bottom of the barrel just to get quality education. What is lost is the luster and import of the Catholic educational mission, which is, lest we forget, to provide “catholic” or universal education for all people, without regard for their economic and financial capacity, exactly because every one is a child of God.
