The Kabataan Party today said school owners and administrators are raking in bigger profits without actually raising tuition.
The youth group revealed that schools have been jacking up miscellaneous fees in place of annual tuition hikes.
“Schools are foregoing tuition increases but they have been bloating miscellaneous fees which are mostly questionable,” Kabataan Party President Raymond Palatino said.
“Unlike tuition, miscellaneous fee hikes have remained unchecked for the last few years. This explains why school owners are able to avoid tuition hikes but still manage to rake in bigger profits annually,” he added.
He said that such tactic has proven to be very profitable to school owners. Unlike tuition, miscellaneous fee of all sorts are not included in the tuition increase consultations provided under CHED memorandum no. 13 which was recently reimplemented following the lifting of the tuition cap, he said.
Palatino cited energy fee, development fee, accreditation fee, athletics fee, internet fee, insurance fee and aircondition fee as some of the dubious fees being collected in private schools.
“Even disbursements for capital expenditures and operating expenses which supposedly are already included in the basic tuition are being charged to students in the form of other miscellaneous fees like the energy fee and the development fee. Some school administrators claim that the energy fee is for the purchase of new air-conditioning units while the development fee is for the construction of new buildings and improvement of other facilities,” Palatino explained.
“These fees are not only questionable, they are superfluous. School owners are becoming more creative in inventing new fees to justify their lust for profit,” he said.
Palatino quoted former CHED executive director Roger Perez as saying in an interview with a daily broadsheet in 2004 that most tertiary schools were charging various fees that he described as “downright ridiculous,” citing as examples unexplained fees for energy, guidance and counseling, aircon, social action, building and development.
Some of the most absurd fees being collected are the postal fee, insurance fee, Smart fee and copier fee in AMA Computer University; power charge fee in Trinity University of Asia; Land Infrastructure Maintenance and Acquisition Development fee in the University of the Cordilleras; accreditation fee in Technological Institute of the Philippine; and pre-registration fee in Aquinas University in Albay.
The Philippine Maritime Institute is charging students with a Safety on Land and Seas fee worth P5,000 to P6,000 while the University of the East in Manila is charging cultural fee amounting to P162 and Internet fee of P976.
“The Asian School of Arts and Sciences is collecting P250 for athletic fee even if the school doesn’t have a varsity team,” Palatino revealed.
“Unless the government and CHED start to regulate miscellaneous fees, school owners will continue to profit from students and parents through these excessive fees. CHED must also determine the miscellaneous fees which schools can collect,” he said.
Palatino also urged CHED to abolish exorbitant fees being charged by schools and penalize school owners who will continue to impose questionable fees on students.