CHED: No fund for over 200K students seeking financial aid

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) on Friday said it could not accommodate the request of 205,584 students seeking financial assistance through one of its programs after it failed to secure additional funding under the 2023 budget.

CHED chairperson Prospero de Vera made the announcement during the agency's presentation of its proposed P30-billion budget for next year before the House appropriations panel.

De Vera said the students are new applicants to the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) program which is given to those enrolled in private schools in areas without state or local university or college and those from families of Unconditional Cash Transfer Program.

"Our funds are just sufficient to cover continuing beneficiaries. Hindi po kami makakapagbukas for new applications kasi wala po kaming pondo para sa new application," De Vera said.

Based on CHED records, there are 364,743 TES beneficiaries for academic year 2021 to 2022.

"We can only commit to provide TES to continuing TES beneficiaries for the academic year 2022 to 2023," De Vera added.

Kabataan party-list Representative Raoul Manuel urged Congress to address the fund gap.

"This trend of CHED not having enough funds for its financial assistance should be reversed," he said.

"We cannot say here in Congress that we are prioritizing education if we are going to allow this," he added.

Aside from lack of funding for the TES program, CHED's proposed 2023 budget also recorded zero allocation for seven research projects in the areas of artificial intelligence, medical education, semiconductor fabrication, food production, food safety, and food security involving 21 state universities and colleges (SUCs).

CHED's proposed 2023 budget also earmarked nothing for seed fund for development of medical schools in SUCs.

Zero allocation was also earmarked for the P28.5 million five-year lease payment to the University of the Philippines Diliman which owns the lot where the CHED building is located.—LDF, GMA News