Some Thomasians enrolling for the second term of Academic Year 2024-2025 were shocked after seeing exorbitantly high enrollment fees in their MyUSTE account.

Agatha Gwen Maclang, a freshman taking Medical Technology, told TomasinoWeb that she was shocked after seeing her assessed fees total to P800,000, which was almost nine times higher than her supposed tuition.

“Super laki po nung balance na nakalagay. It's around 800k when ang total tuition ko lang po is around 90k,” Maclang said. “So, it was really nakakagulat for me.”

Maclang repeatedly tried to email the Student Accounts section of the Office of the Vice-Rector for Finance’s (OVRF) Accounting Division, but she did not receive any response, prompting her to personally visit their office to resolve her concerns.

“It took me extra steps to email them and to contact them. [...] Also, pagdating ko [roon] sa office ang haba ng pila,” Maclang said.

Prince Audinie Guarino, a sophomore from the College of Commerce and Business Administration, wondered how his usual full assessed fees of P64,000 rose to P124,000 this semester.

He said that he thought the increase was related to the tuition hike this semester but later realized it was due to an error after consulting his blockmate.

“Since sabi nga [raw] po meron pong increases in fees, so parang hindi ko po muna siya [inisip] . Noong [kinompare] ko naman po siya sa balances po noong blockmates ko, dun ko po talaga na-realize na there’s an error po,” Guarino added.

Meanwhile, Caryl Ian Posadas, a second-year Speech-Language Pathology student who encountered a similar issue, expressed concern that some students might be forced to enroll late due to the issue, which will incur a late enrolment fee that could be “unreasonable” in light of this problem.

“I think hindi siya reasonable date, since as far as I know, ‘yung iba may mga online week pa. Hindi madaling ma-reach ‘yung Student Accounts sa call, so kailangan pa nilang pumunta face-to-face. Mahirap yun for others na naka-online week,” Posadas said.

After going through the on-site process, all three interviewed students have already resolved the error and are now enrolled in their respective programs.

In a memo dated Jan. 14, the OVRF said that an investigation by the Office of Information and Communications Technology revealed that the “errors” in the assessed fees came up when students accessed the MyUSTe portal simultaneously using multiple gadgets.

The memo instructed academic units to advise students to use only one device to access the portal, clear browser cache and cookies, and reload the page if there are discrepancies in the displayed fees.

The OVRF also adjusted the collection of late enrolment fees from Jan. 13 to Jan. 18.