WITH only two months left before the school year ends, campus activist organizations are demanding that the University refund the tuition increases imposed last June without prior consultation with the students.
Student activists under the coalition, Refund Now, held a picket last Jan. 19 in front of St. Raymund’s Bldg. to demand the refund and to warn against a new tuition increase next school year.
The students asked for the refund after the Committee on Higher and Technical Education of the House of Representatives declared as illegal the controversial Memorandum Order 14 (CMO 14) of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), which allowed colleges and universities planning to increase tuition to forego the mandatory consultation with students for as long as the increase does not exceed 7.6 per cent, which the CHED said was the inflation index last year.
The House committee said the order violates Section 10 of the Republic Act 6728, which states that there must be prior consultation with students and parents before tuition is increased.
As a result of the memo, private colleges and universities increased their tuition and other school fees without consultation.
For its part, the University imposed a 5.5 per cent tuition increase on sophomores, juniors and seniors, and a 7 per cent increase on freshmen this school year.
At the UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, tuition increased more than the 7.6 per cent limit and is set to have an 8 per cent increase this June.
Reached by the Varsitarian, acting CHED Chairman Carlito Puno declined to comment.
Fr. Clarence Marquez, O.P., the new vice-rector for finance of UST, likewise declined to comment, according to his staff Ramil Mamburam.
Aside from the tuition increase, Refund Now questioned several UST student fees which it calls “redundant.”
While UST collects per semester P1,500 for “physical infrastructure development fee,” P300 for “audio-visual fee,” and P1,500 “information development fee,” it also collects P600 for “special development fee” and P800 for “energy fee.”
Refund Now added that while collecting P1000 for freshmen and sophomores, and P900 for third and fourth year student as “athletic fee,” UST also charges P50 as “sports fee.”
Meanwhile, at the Faculty of Pharmacy, freshmen students are charged 1,924.30 while second to fourth year students pay 1,897.30 for “tuition lab fee” and a separate “lab fee” amounting to 546.50 per unit.
JC Valeroso, an AB-BSE junior of the Faculty of Arts and Letters and Refund Now spokesman, said they are holding a signature campaign to press UST to return the “illegal charges.”
Alvin Peters, secretary of Tuition Refund Now, the nationwide alliance of student organizations seeking for a refund, said that if the CHED continued to keep mum and do nothing about the issue, they would ask the Supreme Court to nullify CMO 14 and order a refund.
Meanwhile, Sorsogon Rep. Francis Escudero urged Thomasians to resist “illegal” tuition increases.
“The system of education in this country is pursued by illegal tuition hikes that the private educational institutions impose on students,” said the opposition lawmaker during a symposium on education organized by the Faculty of Arts and Letters Student Council recently.
“Students should not hesitate in opposing illegal tuition increases and the privatization plans of state universities,” he said. Kristine Jane R. Liu and Marc Celis
