Reform the STFAP now!

We greet the new academic year mourning. As we pay our tuition fees, the scene becomes all too clear: One of us, unable to pay, is forced to take a loan from the University, forced to sit through classes without her name in the class list, and eventually forced to leave the University due to financial incapacity.

At the height of our frustration, it becomes easy to unqualifiedly oppose. The danger arises, however, when we decide to do away with policies and programs that are otherwise reasonable in principle. What will happen to UP students without socialized tuition? Will we all be forced to pay equally high tuition rates? Is free tuition possible without sacrificing quality education, given the current budget deficiency for state universities and colleges?

In the context of wide social inequality and scarcity in the budget for higher education, a socialized tuition scheme in its essence presents itself as the most viable solution to ensure that our education is at the same time quality and accessible. Reality demands equity over equality: Those who cannot pay must be subsidized, while those who can must pay.

Yet, despite its idealism, the present tuition scheme as revised in 2007 is unjust, regressive, and flawed. While the "no late payment" policy in UP Manila has been suspended, we continue to be haunted by anti-student rules such as Art. 330 of the University Code, unjustly stating without qualification that "no student who has not duly matriculated shall be admitted to classes." The rule is aggravated by the administration's imposition of unjust ad hoc policies such as assigning students to Bracket B by default.

Moreover, present tuition rates as percentage of income are larger for lower brackets, producing a regressive tuition schedule.* Whereas Bracket A students pay only at most 0.15% of their income for tuition, Bracket B students pay at most 0.20%, Bracket C students pay 0.24%, and Bracket D students pay 0.22%.

Finally, flaws in the implementation of the STFAP are all too familiar: Because of the current policy of centralizing bracket processing in the System-wide University Committee on Scholarships and Financial Assistance (UCSFA) that rarely meets every academic year, results of STFAP applications never make it in time for enrollment. At the same time, arbitrary and outdated indicators based solely on income have produced countless overheard stories of mismatches in bracket assignment.

All of these problems make it clear that, despite our momentary victory in making tuition loanable for up to 100%, the struggle for a just, progressive, and efficient socialized tuition scheme must continue.

The outdated STFAP and other student financial services must be reformed by:

1. Repealing the "no pay, no admission" rule in Art. 330 of the University Code;
2. Developing a progressive tuition schedule by either increasing income thresholds per bracket or lowering tuition fees;
3. Allowing payment of tuition in installments or a late payment option;
4. Prohibiting default bracket assignments;
5. Reducing the time for bracket processing to 2 months and releasing results before enrollment;
6. Decentralizing approval of bracket appeals to the unit/campus level;
7. Using consumption-based indices instead of the current income-based index;
8. Making bracket assignments transparent by providing detailed explanations upon release of STFAP results;
9. Ensuring flexibility through midyear bracket reassignment in cases of unexpected changes in income sources per family;
10. Applying the STFAP even for graduate and second-degree students without increasing tuition rates;
11. Allowing online STFAP application and submission of electronic documents, as recognized under the E-Commerce Law;
12. Providing transportation allowance upon entry of freshmen from distant areas; and
13. Annually reviewing existing tuition policies and programs.

The unheard cry of one of us, along with our frustration, must now be coupled with serious, concrete, and critical proposals for reform. Our struggle has been long, complex, and painful, but our victories prove that history is now in our hands.

As the Board of Regents is set to once again discuss the University's tuition scheme on June 20, we will make sure we are heard. On June 19, join us at the AS Steps, 4:00pm, for a mass tarp signing for our proposed reforms. The tarp will be posted in campus to welcome regents arriving the next day.

Iskolar para sa Bayan, ating pagtagumpayan ang isang makatarungan, progresibo, at epektibong programang pangmatrikula sa Unibersidad!

Be critical. Go beyond scrap.

REFORM THE STFAP NOW!

Laban ng UP Law, Laban ng Lahat!

UP Law is in crisis. Managed recently like a factory desperate to meet product standards in the face of growing criticism of its passing rates and rankings in the bar exams, the college has decided that, instead of developing students who underperform, it should be weeding them out.

Since June 2012, the UP Law admin has been haphazardly implementing revisions in academic policies aimed at dismissing as many students as possible under its watch. The admin started with the reinstatement of the QPI rule in addition to six other ways a law student may be dropped from the rolls. Under the QPI rule, freshmen must annually meet a 2.85 GWA while upperclassmen must have a yearly GWA of 2.75 to stay in the college. Despite promises of prospective application from Dean Danilo Concepcion, the QPI rule can now cover all of the upperclassmen’s grades since entrance into the college. Thus, students who previously never imagined the possibility of such rule must now, all of a sudden, meet its requirements; else, they are dismissed.

The QPI rule was followed by open directives from Dean Concepcion to mercilessly give students failing marks, as relayed by members of the faculty. For the freshmen of AY 2012-2013, the situation was aggravated by the mid-semester decision to implement departmental multiple-choice final exams despite the fact that law professors use substantially different syllabi and course content. Finally, the admin has also decided to institute grade ranges for appeals: Now, only freshmen with a GWA of 2.869 to 2.880 may appeal for retention while upperclassmen must have a cumulative GWA higher than 2.75 to be able to appeal.

The result is the 110: Out of only 667 enrolled students in the college, 17 were dismissed from the first sem and 93 were in danger of being dropped from the rolls by May 2013. Of this 110, only 23 appeals were granted.

While the University aims at quality education, this cannot be holistically had without respecting basic students’ rights and welfare. The hallmark of a UP education is not the rigor of the national university's academic requirements, which any other university or bar-oriented law school can provide, but its libertarian atmosphere of learning that produces critical and professionally prepared Iskolars para sa Bayan. With the University's tradition of academic freedom, UP students learn, develop, and mature into the leading practitioners and scholars our developing nation needs.

UP Law's unreasonable policy direction to kick out its students, all potential lawyers for the people, is a regressive move that pulls us backward from students' rights to student repression. While the college's recent poor performance in the bar exams cannot be denied, why must the admin transfer the burden of improving passing rates and rankings to the students? Instead of being interpreted as the mistake of underperforming students, poor performance might be a signal for UP Law to start rethinking its curriculum, its professors' syllabi and styles of teaching, and its ancient modalities of learning such as daily recitations designed to instill fear in students.

Seen from a larger perspective, the ease with which the UP Law admin instituted anti-student rules magnifies the shaky ground upon which the academic rights we enjoy today stand. We realize that college administrations are empowered to drastically and arbitrarily change policies without student consultation, and that these changes can be applied retroactively to the disadvantage of students.

The crisis in UP Law is therefore a reflection of a larger crisis in our University. While we take pride in UP's brand of academic freedom, we must ask: Are we really free? Until today, we assert that our tambayans are a right and not a privilege, that the implementing rules of the STFAP cannot be arbitrarily changed every year to the disadvantage of students deserving lower brackets than what are assigned, and that we have a right to see our grade breakdowns prior to official recording on the CRS. Indeed, while rules on student discipline are about to be consolidated this year in the 2012 Code of Student Conduct, UP ALYANSA's longstanding call to draft a code of students' rights have yet to even be considered.

The struggle for students' rights in UP is therefore far from over. Until the students victor, we must continue to fight for our rights. This academic year, we start with UP Law.

Suspend the QPI Rule in the UP College of Law!

No to unjust and unconsulted academic rules!

Iskolar para sa Bayan, pagtagumpayan ang ating akademikong kalayaan at mga karapatan!