Incoming 4th-year USC Law students Kerstein Kylle P. Despi, Christa Marie D. Mutuc, and Mary Lynn Y. Te received merit-based scholarships from the Tan Yan Kee Foundation, Inc. under its Foundation for Liberty and Prosperity (FLP) Legal Scholarship Program A.Y. 2023-2024. 

According to its official website, the legal scholarship program is given to the best and brightest law students in the country. To qualify, the applicants must be in the top 20 of the batch of their respective law schools and submit an essay on “safeguarding of liberty and nurturing of prosperity under the rule of law.”

The scholarship is only open to law schools that have achieved a passing percentage higher than the overall passing rate of the 2022 Bar Examinations, according to statistical data from the Supreme Court Office of the Bar Confidant. For the 2022 Bar Exam, the University of San Carlos garnered a 93.47% passing rate for first-time takers and an overall passing rate of 91.43% well above the national average of 43.47%. 

For A.Y. 2023–2024, a total of 11 students were chosen, including 10 third-year students and one fourth-year student. Among these, three were from USC. 

As FLP scholars, the USC Law students will each receive a monetary scholarship award of Php200,000 of which a maximum of Php100,000 shall be for tuition fees, Php20,000 for book allowance, and Php80,000 for the stipend.

The University of San Carlos has been consistently producing FLP winners. In 2021, two USC graduates bagged FLP dissertation awards followed by two other graduates who won in 2022.