00:007,007 students. And right now we are at 9,700 students. This year, so far, enrollment is still ongoing, but we are on track to surpass the 9,700. So as you can see, from the time I arrived, it has a 58.7% growth in enrollment.
00:25I would say there are many factors for this. One would be we invest heavily in our faculty and staff. So we substantially increase the salaries to make it more competitive and a little bit closer to the salaries of public schools, which is very well known to be quite up there.
00:48We are also able to expand benefits, such as giving tuition discounts to every child of every university employee, depending on length of service.
01:01Another thing that we can attribute is that we have set aside, through the Board of Trustees, a bigger fund for scholarships. And this is more...
01:11This is a singular mandate of making access to quality and transformative education easier. And for the 9,707 students, I would say 10 to 15% every year are under...
01:31...one scholarship or another.
01:35Of course, I can also ask. I'd just like to ask. Of course, you said that...
01:41...what you're doing is basically you're giving service to the students and to the community.
01:53Of course, but we're not going to be subject to the pressure of increasing costs. And one major concern is tuition costs. So how are you able to effectively deliver these services in your students?
02:15Of course, of course, with the concern of increasing salaries of your professors, of your instructors and your physical plans of course, there would be...
02:27...mayeron anayong baong in two social districts. So how do you balance out that you have?
02:35So Red, I think it would be good fiscal management.
02:44So we plan years ahead.
02:46And as I mentioned earlier, since every investor is reinvested back,
02:51there may be this misconception that because it's a non-profit and non-stock that there's no revenue.
02:58So in fact there is revenue, and that revenue goes directly back into this ecosystem.
03:04So once it's got there, we then start to recruit more students.
03:10Because we see, nakikita talaga nila,
03:12na yung pera nila, nakupunta talaga sa mga instructors nila,
03:17may gumagaling yung mga instructors, may mga instructors na kagalabas,
03:20na nakikita nila sa facilities.
03:23So once we're able to see that, we do get more enrollment.
03:28And the more enrollment of course comes from more funds
03:33that we can be able to spend within the university.
03:36But what happens is that without good fiscal management, without prioritization,
03:42dintin ang kainatan mo.
03:43So in a perfect world, we would improve everything right now.
03:48But then, that would mean probably increasing pressure by handphone.
03:54So that's where the challenge comes.
03:57But a challenge that we're very happy and welcome to face,
04:02is how do you prioritize?
04:04What are the projects that can give the biggest impact right now,
04:08and the projects that can make the biggest difference right now?
04:12...
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