The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) has started to release stipends to 292,438 college students for Academic Year 2020-2021, chairman Prospero de Vera III announced on Sunday evening.

The Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) will be distributed by CHEd and the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education.

De Vera said the beneficiaries would be from both public and private higher education institutions (HEIs).

The grantees who will receive the TES are the following:

• 3,529 Expanded Students’ Grants-in-Aid Program for Poverty Alleviation beneficiaries (1st semester)
• 44,224 new grantees in public HEIs (1st semester)
• 97,173 continuing private HEIs grantees (1st semester and part of 2nd semester)
• 147,512 continuing Tulong Dunong Program beneficiaries (1st and 2nd semester)

“I am instructing all public and private HEIs to fast track the distribution of the TES to their students so they can use this for paying their existing school fees and attend classes through flexible learning in August 2020,” de Vera said in a statement.

Earlier this year, 120,798 students from 404 colleges and universities nationwide have received the TES.

Classes in schools and universities this year will use an online delivery method amid the Covid-19 pandemic. John Ezekiel J. Hirro