MANILA, Philippines — The budget of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) will go down by P11.65 billion next year, with universal access and financial assistance programs getting the biggest deductions, as provided by the free college tuition law enacted two years ago.

The CHED will get P40.784 billion in 2020, which is 22.22 percent lower than its budget of P52.435 billion this year.

CHED chairman Prospero de Vera informed the House appropriations committee about the budget cut in their agency during a conference before the first day of plenary deliberations yesterday on the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for next year.

The commission’s universal access to quality tertiary education and student financial assistance programs will get the biggest deductions at P7.1 billion and P3.655 billion, respectively.

In the National Expenditure Program submitted by the Department of Budget and Management, which was adopted by the House in its General Appropriations Bill, the universal access program of CHED under Republic Act 10931 will go down from P42.49 billion this year to P35.36 next year or a decrease by 16.78 percent.

The student financial program, on the other hand, will get P516.9 million next year, which is 87.6 percent lower than P4.172 billion this year.

The CHED’s budget for K-12 transition program will also decrease by P682 million or 21.5 percent from P3.176 billion in 2019 to P2.494 billion next year.

Lastly, the subsidy for medical students in state universities and colleges amounting to P167 million for this year was removed in the agency’s budget for next year.

Just like CHED, the Department of Education also got a budget cut from the DBM in the 2020 proposed national budget. It asked for P803.13 billion, but DBM only recommended P550.89 billion.