The Socialized Tuition Fee Assistance Program (STFAP) of the University of the Philippines (UP), a state university that was supposedly fully funded by the government, woes the students by making them pay for their own tuition fee.
STFAP was designed to classify students according to their family's annual income into a bracketing system. The default bracket, which is "Bracket A," states that every student that falls into that category should pay 1,500 PhP per unit every semester (aprx. 30 USD). The average number of units of a student is 24-25.
For a student to have a lower Bracket, which means a lower cost for every unit, he or she must go through a tedious and ridiculous process of STFAP.
So ridiculous that if you have at least one working toilet with flush at home, you are automatically assigned to a higher Bracket.
Originally published in November 2012 on The Philippine Collegian.
