IF elected the next mayor, Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte wants 100 percent free tuition at the Quezon City Polytechnic University.
Rather than selectively giving out scholarships to a limited number of students, Belmonte said she would push for full free tuition for all QCPU students.
With its P19-billion annual budget, the city government is financially capable to fully subsidize the city-funded university, especially the tuition and miscellaneous fees, she said.
“At present, we have QCPU, but it does not offer free [tuition], just a socialized tuition at the moment,” Belmonte said, noting that the tuition the enrollees pay is calculated based on their family’s socioeconomic status.
“This is one of the challenges we face – we really need a higher education institution that provides full free tuition for the youth.
Unlike Quezon City, almost all highly urbanized cities in Metro Manila, such as Manila, Makati and Marikina are already providing full free college education, she lamented.
“I think, such has not been the priority of the city government,” the vice mayor said.
Belmonte said she has already talked to the Commission on Higher Education about her proposal, and was told the QCPU only needed an accreditation to be able to start offering full tuition subsidy to the students.
“We have a big population, a big percentage of this is composed of young people with an average age of 24, so our challenge for us here is to harness the potentials of these youths so they could become successful and contribute to the development of our city,” she said.
Education is “a very, very big factor” to sustain the city’s continued economic growth and eliminate poverty, she added.