Educating Our Children In College

My subject for this blog is the cost of sending Filipino students to college nowadays. I am no longer spending for the education of our children because they are all grown-ups and had finished their college education. I just cannot imagine how I could be able to support them today if they were still getting ready for the CISA exam. The sixty to seventy thousand (PhP60,000 to 70.000) pesos tuition per college student in some private colleges and universities in the country is simply beyond my capacity these days.

Three of our four children studied in the premier state university when the tuition was still around six to seven thousand (PhP6,000 to 7,000) pesos only. Today, the fees in the said school has also gone up to more than twenty thousand (>PhP20,000) pesos per semester. The amount is relatively low if compared to the amount I mentioned above for schools that offer competitive quality of education to their students.

Until the early 1970’s when I was taking my college education in a top technological institute, the cost per semester of college education including laboratory fees would not exceed three hundred (PhP300) pesos. till then, I would only be aware of the rise in the cost of education when our children reached college and I already mentioned the figures above. At the rate the cost of education in the Philippines rose from the P300 in my college days to P60,000 nowadays or 200 times for a period of thirty-five (35) years, I can surmise that this is the number one reason for very high dropouts in our country.

Where does this situation brings us? Unaffordable education causes dropouts who would otherwise be useful workers in an industrialized economy. We do not have an industrialized economy so is it just alright that we have citizens with less than college education? Not so, our employment situation is so bad because our manpower are not qualified to fill up job opportunities available. It could have been different if our college education is affordable to many.