Just weeks before the new academic year opens in the Philippines, the country’s president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered state universities and colleges on Tuesday to freeze their planned tuition increases and to issue refunds to students, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

Ms. Arroyo called the higher rates a burden on most parents in “these belt-tightening times.” She also asked state institutions to extend their enrollment periods by one week so that those who did not register because of the higher fees could reconsider.

Student leaders who marched to the presidential palace, in Manila, to thank the president for the tuition cap said many feared they would not be able to finish their degrees in the face of fee increases. Rising fuel and food prices and stagnant wages are being blamed for a growing student dropout rate and a decline in enrollments.

The National Union of Students of the Philippines welcomed the tuition moratorium but complained that the order applied only to public institutions, which enroll a third of all Filipino students. They asserted that some private colleges had raised miscellaneous fees by as much as 70 percent.

Ms. Arroyo urged private colleges and universities not to raise their fees but said the government had no control over them. —Martha Ann Overland