TL;DR: Free tuition at a state university is universal and has no income cap (RA 10931). The cash subsidies on top of it are need-ranked rather than capped, and the amounts are precise: TES pays PHP 20,000 a year at a SUC or LUC and PHP 27,000 a year at a private HEI under UniFAST Memorandum Circular No. 01, s. 2026, and Tulong Dunong pays PHP 7,500 per semester, PHP 15,000 a year, under MC 02, s. 2026. Neither has a peso income ceiling. You cannot hold both — being a Tulong Dunong beneficiary is an express ground of ineligibility for TES. TESDA runs its own scholarships under separate guidelines.
Introduction
Millions of Filipinos work while studying. Some hold full-time jobs to support a family; others take shifts and freelance work to cover tuition, fare and food. The question that actually matters is not whether help exists but how much, from whom, and what disqualifies you — and this is exactly where most online guides go wrong, quoting figures that were superseded years ago or inventing ranges nobody can trace.
Everything below is taken from the governing issuance, named so you can check it. The single most important structural fact is this: tuition and the subsidy are two different things, governed by different rules. Get that straight and the rest follows.
First: free tuition is not means-tested
Republic Act No. 10931, the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, exempts Filipino students from tuition and other school fees at:
- State universities and colleges (SUCs) — Section 4.
- CHED-recognised local universities and colleges (LUCs) — Section 4. An LUC is a public higher education institution established by a local government unit through an enabling ordinance and recognised by CHED. Recognition is what matters, not the fact of being city-run.
- State-run technical-vocational institutions — Section 5, covering post-secondary TVET programmes.
There is no household income cap in Sections 4 and 5. You qualify by passing the admission and retention requirements, not by proving you are poor. This surprises a lot of working students who assume they earn too much to be eligible and never apply.
One important limit: the exemption is for a first undergraduate degree. If you already hold a bachelor's degree, the free-tuition benefit does not reach you.
The Tertiary Education Subsidy: exact 2026 amounts
TES is the cash grant that sits on top of free tuition, and it is what most working students are actually looking for. It is administered under Section 7 of RA 10931 by the UniFAST Board, and the operative document is UniFAST Memorandum Circular No. 01, series of 2026 — the 2026 Revised Guidelines on the Implementation of the Tertiary Education Subsidy, effective from the first semester of AY 2026-2027.
How much
Section 4 of those guidelines sets the amounts, and they are fixed figures rather than ranges:
| Grantee category | Per semester | Per academic year |
|---|---|---|
| Top-priority grantee at a SUC or LUC | PHP 10,000.00 | PHP 20,000.00 |
| Top-priority grantee at a private HEI | PHP 13,500.00 | PHP 27,000.00 |
| Additional allowance for a student with a disability (TES-3A) | PHP 5,000.00 | PHP 10,000.00 |
| Dependent of a solo parent, or member of an indigenous peoples community | PHP 5,000.00 | PHP 10,000.00 |
| Licensure examination reimbursement (TES-3B), one time | — | up to PHP 8,000.00 |
| Student at risk of dropping out (SARDO), one time | — | PHP 10,000.00 |
The TES-3B reimbursement is easy to overlook and directly relevant if you are heading for a board exam: TES graduates in courses requiring licensure examinations may claim a one-time reimbursement of up to PHP 8,000.00 toward the cost of sitting it. The SARDO allowance is a one-time PHP 10,000.00 for grantees hit by an unexpected disruption — the guidelines name the death or serious illness of a primary income earner, calamities and sudden economic crises as examples, subject to assessment by your institution.
Section 4 closes with a protection worth knowing: the benefits "shall not be reduced and shall be continuously given for the duration of their undergraduate programs," subject to available funds and to your remaining compliant with your institution's retention requirements.
Who gets a slot
Section 3 sets a prioritisation order, subject to available funds:
- Students in households in the most updated Listahanan, ranked by per capita income. If Listahanan is discontinued, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) list is used, including dependents of solo parents, members of indigenous peoples communities and persons with disabilities.
- All other enrolled students, ranked by household per capita income, specifically dependents of solo parents (as defined in RA 11861, the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Act, and reflected in the DSWD Registry) and members of indigenous cultural communities or indigenous peoples on the NCIP list.
If you are a working student supporting yourself, note that the ranking is on household per capita income, not on your own wage.
What disqualifies you
Section 7 lists the grounds, and two of them catch working students in particular:
- You are already in a second undergraduate programme. TES is for a first degree.
- You already hold Tulong Dunong, a CHED Scholarship Program, or another nationally funded student financial assistance programme. One-time grants are the exception — the guidelines name DSWD's Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations and CHED's Student Monetary Assistance for Recovery and Transition (SMART).
- Your institution or programme is not in the CHED Registry of Programs and Institutions.
- Foreign citizenship, non-student status, or submitting spurious documents.
For continuing grantees, the terminating grounds include failing to enrol for one academic term with no LOA, failing to enrol for at least two terms within an academic year, suspension for a term or more, expulsion, failing your institution's retention requirements, and failing to finish your degree a year after the period prescribed in your programme.
How long it lasts
Section 8: eligibility begins in the academic year your TES award number is issued, regardless of year level, and runs for the standard duration of your degree programme plus a one-year grace period. Academic years in which you have already drawn TES are deducted.
Two working-student-specific rules sit here:
- A formal Leave of Absence pauses the clock. The LOA period, during which no grant is disbursed, is excluded from the computation, and your eligibility is suspended rather than spent. File the LOA properly — simply disappearing for a term is a termination ground.
- Shifting programmes does not reset it. If you transfer to a programme of equal or longer duration, your eligibility stays pegged to the original programme's required years plus the one-year grace. Transfer to a shorter programme and it adjusts down.
If there is no state university near you
Section 6 creates TES-PNSL for students at private HEIs in a city or municipality with no SUC or LUC. If the nearest one is at least 20 kilometres away, you qualify on that basis alone. If it is within 20 kilometres, you still qualify if your course is not offered there, or you were not admitted because of admission or eligibility requirements, or you were not admitted because of slot limits — with the SUC or LUC's notification or certification as proof.
How to apply
Applications go through your institution, not through a link you find online. The UniFAST Secretariat issues a call before the start of the first semester of each academic year; your HEI uploads applicant lists through the HEI Portal at the same time as its enrolment period; the Secretariat then runs eligibility cross-matching and name-matching, and results are released to the HEI. Applying is explicitly not automatic qualification — it is subject to validation and available funds.
Go to your school's UniFAST, scholarship or financial aid office. Our guide comparing CHED TES, Tulong Dunong and free tuition sets the three side by side, and the CHED TES guide covers the programme in more depth.
Tulong Dunong: the smaller alternative
The Tulong Dunong Program (TDP) is administered by CHED through UniFAST and is described in UniFAST's own material as a subsidy under the TES Program, aimed at supporting at least the partial cost of tertiary education including education-related expenses. Its current rules are UniFAST Memorandum Circular No. 02, series of 2026, signed 3 June 2026 and effective from the first semester of AY 2026-2027.
Eligibility, per Section 2:
- Filipino citizen.
- Enrolled in any first undergraduate degree programme at a SUC, a CHED-recognised LUC, or a private HEI covered by a MOA with CHED-UniFAST.
- Not a beneficiary of TES, a CHED Scholarship Program, or another nationally funded student financial assistance programme. Free higher education at a SUC or LUC is the express exception, and one-time grants such as DSWD AICS or CHED SMART are carved out, though TDP and SMART cannot be received in the same semester.
Benefit, per Section 3: PHP 7,500.00 per regular semester, or PHP 15,000.00 per academic year, for continuing and new grantees alike, subject to prioritisation and the availability of funds. The circular notes the Board may increase it.
Documents. New applicants submit the TDP-TES application form, a certified true copy or electronically generated Certificate of Enrolment or Certificate of Registration showing the number of units, and a Certificate of Indigency signed by the Punong Barangay where they reside. Continuing grantees submit the enrolment proof, plus a certified true copy of any Leave of Absence filed with the institution if they missed a semester.
Note what is not in the eligibility list. There is no requirement that you be in a CHED-identified priority programme, and it is not restricted to private institutions. Both claims circulate widely and neither appears in the circular. Nor is there an income ceiling: the PHP 400,000 combined household gross income cap quoted in almost every write-up, and still shown on UniFAST's own programme page, does not appear in Section 2 of the 2026 revised guidelines, whose repealing clause supersedes the earlier issuance that carried it. Need is evidenced by the Certificate of Indigency instead.
A caution on names. Tulong Dunong is a grant, not a loan, and it is not a renamed "Study Now, Pay Later" scheme. The loan facility created by RA 10931 is the separate Student Loan Program in Section 8 of the Act, available to students in SUCs, LUCs, private HEIs and TVET programmes, with repayment collected through the borrower's monthly SSS or GSIS contribution. We cover borrowing in student loans in the Philippines.
TESDA: a different system with different rules
If technical-vocational training suits your schedule better than a degree, TESDA is a genuinely faster and cheaper route — and it is governed separately. Section 1 of the 2026 TES guidelines says so explicitly: TES for TVET is governed by separate guidelines issued by TESDA, with TESDA coordinating with the UniFAST Secretariat so that TVET beneficiaries are included in the same cross-matching system that prevents duplication.
That last clause matters. Holding a TESDA-funded scholarship does not sit outside the anti-duplication net.
The main TESDA scholarship routes are the Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP), the Private Education Student Financial Assistance (PESFA) programme for TVET at private institutions, and the Special Training for Employment Program (STEP) for short community-based courses. Separately, RA 10931 Section 5 makes post-secondary programmes at state-run TVIs free of tuition and other school fees.
Amounts, allowances and slot availability change with each funding cycle and are set by TESDA rather than by UniFAST, so get the current figures from your TESDA Provincial or District Office rather than from any article. Our TESDA scholarship guide and complete guide to TESDA courses cover the programmes and the qualifications in detail.
Corporate and private scholarships
Several large Philippine companies and foundations run scholarship programmes that working students commonly apply to, among them SM Foundation, Ayala Foundation, the Jollibee Group Foundation, Megaworld Foundation and San Miguel Foundation.
We are not going to print grade requirements, income ceilings or stipend amounts for these here. Private programmes revise their terms without notice, do not publish them in a stable issuance, and the figures that circulate online are frequently years old — a reader who plans around a stale GWA cut-off has wasted an application cycle. What is reliably true across them:
- Terms are set by the sponsor, not by CHED, and can change between cycles.
- Most carry a grade condition and a return-service or internship expectation. Read the memorandum of agreement before signing, particularly the service obligation.
- Application windows are narrow and usually tied to the sponsor's own calendar rather than the academic one.
- Check whether they count as a StuFAP for stacking purposes. A privately funded corporate scholarship is not a nationally funded StuFAP, but if a programme is government-funded in whole or part it may collide with TES. Ask the sponsor directly.
Go to the foundation's own page for current terms. We maintain detail on the SM Foundation scholarship and the Ayala Foundation scholarship, and a broader survey in scholarships for college students in the Philippines.
The same applies to institutional aid. Many private colleges run academic scholarships, sibling discounts and student assistantships that pay part of tuition in exchange for campus work. These are negotiated with the school's own finance office and are often the fastest money to access, because there is no national queue.
Schools that accommodate working students
Flexibility is a scheduling question more than a prestige question. What to look for:
- Evening, weekend or modular class schedules that fit around shift work.
- A trimester or quarter calendar, which spreads a lighter per-term load across more terms.
- Instalment payment plans, so tuition is not one lump sum at enrolment.
- Student assistantship posts, which trade campus work for a tuition discount.
- Distance or blended delivery for coursework you can do at night.
The UP Open University runs fully online degree programmes at state-university rates. Large private networks including STI College, AMA Computer College and the PHINMA Education schools such as University of Pangasinan, Cagayan de Oro College and Southwestern University run evening and weekend sections across many campuses.
Verify the specifics with the registrar rather than with a brochure — schedules, campus offerings and payment terms differ by branch and by programme. Our companion guides cover schools for working students and courses for working students.
Practical advice that is actually about the money
- Apply for free tuition even if you think you earn too much. RA 10931 Sections 4 and 5 impose no income cap. This is the single most common self-disqualification.
- Pick one national grant, not two. Applying for both TES and Tulong Dunong wastes an application and can get you removed from one. Compare the amounts against your institution type: at a private HEI, TES at PHP 27,000 a year is worth more than Tulong Dunong at PHP 15,000.
- Ask about TES-PNSL if you commute to a private school. The 20-kilometre rule is real money and almost nobody raises it unprompted.
- File a Leave of Absence, never just stop showing up. An LOA pauses your TES eligibility; an unexplained absence terminates it.
- Keep your load high enough to finish inside the grace period. Eligibility is the standard programme duration plus one year. Dropping to a very light load for several years can run you out.
- Claim the licensure reimbursement. If your course requires a board exam and you were a TES grantee, TES-3B is up to PHP 8,000 you have already earned.
- Track your income against the tax threshold. RA 10963 taxes annual taxable income up to PHP 250,000 at zero per cent.
- Do not overload. Twelve to fifteen units with good grades beats twenty-one units and a failed retention check that costs you the grant.
Start your search
Find schools with flexible schedules and affordable tuition on SchoolFinderPH — search by city, including Manila, Quezon City, Cebu, Davao and Baguio, or browse by programme.
Sources
- CHED-UniFAST — Memorandum Circular No. 01, s. 2026: 2026 Revised Guidelines on the Implementation of the Tertiary Education Subsidy (official PDF) — Sec. 1 coverage and TVET carve-out, Sec. 3 prioritisation, Sec. 4 amounts of subsidy, Sec. 5 SARDO, Sec. 6 TES-PNSL and the 20-kilometre rule, Sec. 7 grounds for ineligibility and termination, Sec. 8 duration of eligibility, Sec. 9 application procedures
- CHED-UniFAST — Memorandum Circular No. 02, s. 2026: 2026 Revised Guidelines on the Implementation of the Tulong Dunong Program (official PDF) — Sec. 2 qualification requirements, Sec. 3 grant amount, Sec. 4 grounds for ineligibility, Sec. 7 documentary requirements
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 10931, the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act — Sec. 4 free tuition at SUCs and CHED-recognised LUCs, Sec. 5 state-run TVIs, Sec. 7 Tertiary Education Subsidy, Sec. 8 Student Loan Program
- CHED-UniFAST — programme directory and regional contact details
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 10963, the TRAIN Law — the zero per cent rate on annual taxable income not over PHP 250,000
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 11861, the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Act — Sec. 3(b), the definition of dependents applied in TES prioritisation
- TESDA — scholarship programmes and current slot availability
A note on what was removed. An earlier version of this guide carried a Tertiary Education Subsidy range of PHP 20,000 to 40,000 a year, a Tulong Dunong range of PHP 15,000 to 30,000, a PESFA daily allowance figure, and grade and income thresholds for five corporate scholarship programmes. None were traceable to the issuing body, and the two national figures were wrong against UniFAST's own guidelines. They have been replaced with the published amounts or removed rather than restated more vaguely. A claim that a named private university offers free tuition was also removed as incorrect. A PHP 400,000 household income ceiling on Tulong Dunong was removed in a later pass: it appears on UniFAST's own programme page but not in the 2026 revised guidelines that supersede it.
