2017 Free Tuition Status

Legal Basis
SUCs are authorized to collect tuition fees and other necessary school charges in accordance with R.A. No. 8292; provided that starting the first semester of SY 2017 – 2018, no tuition fee shall be collected from undergraduate students. The SUCs shall charge the Higher Education Support Fund in lieu of the income from tuition fees. The Commission on Higher Education and Department of Budget and Management released Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2017-1A last May 18, 2017 on Grant of Free Tuition in 114 State Universities and Colleges in the Philippines including Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges. Thirty Million Six Hundred One Thousand Pesos was given to Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges as a total budget which will be allocated for the fiscal year 2017. This program will cover all undergraduate course programs. The policy shall cover all Filipino students enrolling in undergraduate course programs in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) for the Academic Year 2017-2018, subject to the prioritization directive of the President and the availability of funds in the HESF.

Prioritization
The joint memorandum said that students who are beneficiaries of nationally-funded StuFAPs shall be the first to be enrolled in the SUCs. The tuition fees of students receiving StuFAPs with total annual benefit amount equal to or lower than Php15, 000.00 will be charged to the Free Tuition 2017 allocated fund and they will continue receiving their regular StuFAPs in addition to this tuition subsidy. When all StuFAP beneficiaries have been enrolled, continuing students or upperclassmen will be given priority in the Free tuition slots ranked according to their household income based on submitted documents for proof of income subject to the availability of the Free Tuition Funds. If there are remaining Free Tuition Funds, new enrollees and returning students will be given the corresponding Free Tuition slots ranked according to their household income based on submitted documents for proof of income subject to the availability of the Free Tuition Funds.

Statistics
On the statistics submitted by Accounting Unit, there are 4, 155 students for the School Year 2017-2018 in total. There are 353 scholars who are receiving scholarship greater than 15,000.00, viz: 337 ESGP-PA; 2 DOST; and 14 StuFAP Scholars and these scholars were not included in prioritization. There are also 3, 802 slots to be prioritized, and with these statistics, there are 1,210 Tulong Dunong, DOST, StuFAP, and CSPC Scholars who are receiving less than 15,000 pesos, there are also 1, 509 continuing students who are included in prioritization, with these there 747 continuing students and 336 new students who are not included in prioritization.

Concurrently, based on the estimate, Billable Budget Ceiling is amounting to 23,335,455.11 pesos and the budget allocated for is CSPC is only 16,800,500.00 pesos. Hence, there is a foregone income amounting to 6, 534, 955.11 pesos. With these, the tuition subsidy for 1st Semester 2017-2018 is 30% lower than the expected tuition fee of the College.