MBAs, PhDs at less costs

For many intellectually gifted Filipinos who aspire for higher education, a college degree from a Philippine university is not enough.

If their finances permit and they can meet scholastic standards, they yearn for masteral or doctorate degrees from prestigious schools in the United States, Europe and Australia, to name a few.

In the local business community, an MBA (master in business administration) degree from an Ivy League school is often considered a plus factor for promotion.

The alumni from those schools are known to look after or promote each other’s professional interests whenever possible.

Although scholarships are available from those institutions, the costs of foreign residency do not come cheap. Some scholars have to engage in part time work to augment their funds.

The opportunity for higher education from prominent foreign schools may have become less expensive with the enactment of Republic Act No. 11448, or the “The Transnational Higher Education Act.”

The law aims to, among others, actively encourage, promote and accelerate the establishment of transnational higher education (TNHE) programs and the internationalization of higher education in the Philippines.

TNHE is like “academic franchising” where a higher educational institution from another country, as a franchiser, grants another institution, as a franchisee, in another country the right to provide the franchiser’s programs and qualification requirements in the franchisee’s country, regardless of the students’ origin.

Subject to the approval of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), foreign schools may provide undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate degrees.

Those that belong to the top 500 higher education institutions in the world for three consecutive years based on reputable international ranking acknowledged by the CHED shall be presumed to be compliant with international standards.

With that status, they shall be exempt from the quality assurance review of the CHEd or other audit and accreditation groups.

Their programs may be carried out by way of, among others, articulation (whereby students for a subdegree in one country are guaranteed advance entry into a degree program in another country if they accomplish an agreed level of performance in studies), branch campus arrangements, and online, blended and distance learning.

To ensure the quality of education that foreign schools can offer or provide, the law requires that they are (a) recognized by their respective governments as quality higher education providers and accredited by a recognized accrediting body in their country; (b) have standards on a par or higher than Philippine standards; and (c) have the capability and resources to provide higher education to the students.

If they want to establish a branch campus in the country in partnership with a local school, or operate as a separate Philippine company, their voting stocks should at least be 60-percent owned by Filipino citizens.

In what may be considered a sop to Filipino educators and students, foreign citizens may constitute up to 80 percent of the school’s faculty and academic only, and up to 40 percent for the administrative personnel in any of the local branches.

And most importantly, foreign students should not constitute more than one-third of the branch’s enrollment.

To encourage the entry of these schools, the law provides that, aside from the exemption from taxes of revenues and assets used exclusively for educational purpose, all grants, bequest, endowments, donations and contribution made to them that shall be used exclusively for the same purpose shall be exempt from the donor’s tax.

In addition, those funding sources shall be permitted as allowable deductions from the gross income of the donor for purposes of computing its taxable income under the Tax Code.

Let’s see if those come-ons would be attractive enough to encourage prestigious foreign higher education schools to come to the Philippines. INQ

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