[22 April 2025, Quezon City] The University of the Philippines (UP) has released the results of the UP College Admission Test (UPCAT) for Academic Year 2025-2026. With this, the national university is opening its doors wider for brilliant young UPCAT qualifiers from the nation’s most remote and underserved areas to take that life-changing leap—with the promise that they will not have to do it alone.
Through its Lingap Iskolar Program, which was officially launched on May 31, 2024, UP is offering additional support to incoming first-year students from Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA) and low-income backgrounds. These are students who have passed the highly competitive UPCAT but who often still choose not to enroll because they could not afford the costs of university life.
UP recognizes that even with free tuition under RA 10931, the reality of leaving home, renting a dorm room, paying for daily meals, and covering transport costs can be prohibitive, especially for families already struggling to make ends meet. Lingap Iskolar seeks to address this need.
“Our mission is to ensure that every deserving Filipino student, regardless of socioeconomic background or circumstance, should have access to quality UP education. We are strongly committed to become a better mirror of the country we serve,” said UP President Angelo Jimenez during a recent media briefer held at the UP Diliman campus.
A joint initiative of the UP Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs (OVPAA), the Lingap Iskolar Program offers practical help for UPCAT qualifiers who would otherwise be unable to enroll in UP because of financial hardship and geographic distance.
“Every year, we see too many brilliant young Filipinos—top of their class, full of potential—decide not to pursue their UP dream. And every year, that breaks our heart,” said Jimenez. “The Lingap Iskolar Program is our promise that we will do better by them. That a UP education will be truly within reach, wherever they come from.”
The UP President also noted that Lingap Iskolar is one of the UP System administration’s interventions under its flagship program on inclusive admissions. “We noticed that after every UPCAT, there are around 1,500 qualifiers from GIDAs who don’t proceed to UP,” Jimenez said. These are the UPCAT qualifiers whose families still cannot afford to support their education in UP despite the free tuition under RA 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.
Last year, the program provided 194 Lingap scholars around PhP165,000 each in financial aid, plus mentoring support coordinated by the Office of Student Affairs in their campus. For this year, UP has earmarked funds to support 300 Lingap scholars.
“Our mission is to ensure that every deserving Filipino student, regardless of socioeconomic background or circumstance, should have access to quality UP education. We are not yet where we want to be but we are moving forward. We are strongly committed to become a better mirror of the country we serve,” Jimenez stressed.
