Tuition Tees

Back in the late 80’s, a shirt thought up by a group of graduating seniors from my university had this rather braggart print (and we wonder why people call us elitists, duh):

FRONT:
This shirt cost my parents P 48,742.85

BACK:
…and I am worth every cent of it.

It was a time when a semester’s tuition fee from the other colleges and universities would only cost around P 1,000 to P 2,000. Looking back, what the hell was I thinking by asking my parents to let me study there? We were just a common middle class family with both parents working their butts off to be able to send their children to school. But I guess being a member of a very small family with only one other sibling has its advantages.

Fastforward to the present. I just learned that to be able to send a child to grade school in an exclusive school here in the Metro would mean shelling out around P 60,000 a year just for tuition fees alone. Whew! How fast time flies. And how fast tuition fees increase.

I have already made the computations long ago. With the current rate tuition fees hike up every year, it is a fair estimate that they would double up every six to seven years. And I have been fairly accurate with my estimates. I graduated from college with my last semester costing my parents around P15,000. That was 14 years ago. From what I heard last year from a friend who teaches there, a semester’s tuition fee already costs P60,000 easily.

So if I would have a child born today, I should prepare myself to cough up roughly P 250,000 to P 400,000 a semester for his college degree.

Funny, that shirt will surely take on a totally different meaning 20 years from now.